


Every Road Will Always Lead Home

by crzy_wrtr10



Category: Lord Ramage Series - Dudley Pope, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Dragon Theft, Attempted Murder, Baby's First Intentional Crossover, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Book 1: His Majesty's Dragon, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragons Are Just Very Large Cats, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hello Small Fandom, Historical References, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Insults, Mostly Historical Inaccuracy, Not Britpicked, Period Typical Attitudes, Period Typical Bigotry, Podfic Welcome, Scottish Character, Scottish Traditions, Spoilers for Book 1: His Majesty's Dragon, Spoilers for Ramage's Diamond, Swearing, Tartan, Thank you Tag Wranglers, men being idiots, slight historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 20:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crzy_wrtr10/pseuds/crzy_wrtr10
Summary: They’d found it belowdecks of a French frigate they’d taken as a prize. Ramage had agreed they should take it with them, though he was incredibly reluctant to do so much as look at it for an extended period of time. Instead, he’d left it primarily in the care of his lieutenants ⎯ mostly First Lieutenant James Aitken and Second Lieutenant Francis Wagstaffe. Baker and Kenton assisted when necessary, but the bulk of looking after the egg (keeping it secure, keeping it warm) alternated between the two of them. The Captain had scrounged a book of different dragon breeds from somewhere, and in the time they weren’t on duty or sleeping, Jamie and Francis compared the egg to the illustrations.They were mildly certain it was French. They were less certain what, exactly, it was.Nobody had any sort of clue when the damn thing was actually going to hatch. Until it did, rather unexpectedly, in the middle of the gunroom one cloudy morning.Two lieutenants accidentally pull a William Laurence and find themselves with a sudden career change and a whole heap of trouble to go with it.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	1. Every Road

**Author's Note:**

> This got COMPLETELY out of hand. 
> 
> I love the Ramage novels. I've loved them for over a decade now, at least. And I was going back through and re-reading Temeraire, and I was like "they can exist in the same universe" and then my brain was all "what if James and Wagstaffe find an egg?" and then four days and 20,000 words later I'm 4,000 words in the hole on my NaNo project and there's this beast. 
> 
> Hi new fandom. Fandoms? Sure. Anyway, come meet the disaster lieutenants. 
> 
> Some quick things first. 
> 
> **MAY SQUICK: If you're not a fan of blood, injury, descriptions of blood, descriptions of injury - everything from gunshots to stab wounds to getting a knee wrenched by an improvised harness, then I ask you read with caution. There is also a moment where a character is threatened to be shot in the genitals with a pistol. (He does not get shot.) There is also period-typical derogatory remarks about someone's heritage. Again, you folks know your limits, I'm just giving you the heads up that it's in there. If there's anything you think I should mention here that I failed to, please don't hesitate to send me a message and I'll amend this portion of my author's note.**
> 
> A huge, huge thank you to agarthanguide as always. She is fabulous, in so many ways. 
> 
> A few more things and then I'll let you actually get to the story you clicked for. Spoilers for His Majesty's Dragon, and definitely for Ramage's Diamond (Ramage #7). Canonically speaking, Wagstaffe was never given a first name by Dudley Pope, so I did it for him, and came up with Francis. Throne of Jade hasn't yet happened, and I've messed completely with canon on the Ramage side of things, except Book #9 definitely hasn't happened yet. 
> 
> I genuinely think that's it. I hope you folks enjoy. Title (mostly) from Charlie Puth's "When I See You Again (solo version)". Yeah. Enjoy.

They’d found it belowdecks of a French frigate they’d taken as a prize. Ramage had agreed they should take it with them, though he was incredibly reluctant to do so much as look at it for an extended period of time. Instead, he’d left it primarily in the care of his lieutenants -- mostly First Lieutenant James Aitken and Second Lieutenant Francis Wagstaffe. Baker and Kenton assisted when necessary, but the bulk of looking after the egg (keeping it secure, keeping it warm) alternated between the two of them. The Captain had scrounged a book of different dragon breeds from somewhere, and in the time they weren’t on duty or sleeping, Jamie and Francis compared the egg to the illustrations.

They were mildly certain it was French. They were less certain what, exactly, it was.

Nobody had any sort of clue when the damn thing was actually going to hatch. Until it did, rather unexpectedly, in the middle of the gunroom one cloudy morning.

James set it on the floor after Francis hastily shoved the table out of the way. Kenton leaned against the gunroom doorway, knuckles near his mouth. Francis grabbed a cloth from his cabin as the shell cracked further, finally splitting open and spilling a dragonet onto the floor. Even after spending hours pouring over the book from Ramage, James still didn’t have half a clue what breed it might be.

“Hello, you,” James said, easing down to sit on the floor. The dragonet -- the size of a dog -- turned in a circle to face him. It was a curious black and burnt orange color, its wings a curious shape that resembled one or two of the illustrations in the book.

A harness, he thought belatedly. They were supposed to harness it, weren’t they.

“Jamie,” it chirped in a child-like voice. “**You’re much smaller than I thought you would be**,” it -- he -- added in Scots Gaelic.

Francis, sitting with his back to his closed cabin door on the opposite side of the gunroom, snorted. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing that was some sort of insult.”

“I’m smaller than I sound, apparently.”

The dragonet spun in a tight circle, flinging bits of shell and slime in every direction. It was worth it, though, when it cried out, “Francis!”

“Look at you. Come here and I’ll clean you up a bit.”

Little claws scrabbled across the boards; he tumbled his way over to Francis and into his lap, shoving his head under the cloth. James stifled a laugh, and took the little harness Kenton held out to him, automatically adjusting the straps and buckles.

“Do you have a name or shall we give you one?” Francis asked, carefully wiping the dragonet’s delicate wings.

“I picked one,” he said proudly. “I thought about it in my shell.”

Kenton joined the rest of them on the floor, arms wrapped around his drawn up knees and a smile at the edge of his mouth as he watched the dragonet’s focus bounce back and forth between James and Francis.

“Calypso,” he said proudly, stumbling out of Francis’s lap and heading to Jamie. “I want to be called Calypso.”

After a quick glance at the rest of them, James shrugged. He wasn’t about to argue with something that was going to, maybe, be as large as the frigate they were currently calling home.

“Can we call you Cal? Also, can you put your head here?” James fit the harness to the dragonet -- to Cal -- and made sure none of the buckles were going to rub uncomfortably against his scales.

“I approve. You may call me Cal.” He balanced on his backlegs on James’s thigh, rearing up to look him in the eye. “I am hungry.” He took the opportunity to look at Kenton. “Peter?”

“Hello, Cal.” Pete smiled widely; Cal leaned over and allowed Pete to stroke the scales at the top of his head, though he didn’t move bodily from James.

Francis found him some meat to eat while James informed Ramage the egg had hatched.

“Well, he is quite handsome, gentlemen,” Ramage said after Cal had eaten approximately his own weight in sheep meat and then proceeded to doze off in Francis’s arms after he’d been cleaned up. “Any idea as to what breed he is?”

“My best guess, sir, based on the description in the book you loaned us, is that he could be a cross between a British Anglewing and a French Flamme-de-Gloire. But we won’t know that for sure until he gets older, maybe?” James genuinely didn’t know. Which meant he didn’t know how _large_ Cal was going to get. Or how quickly.

Lord, was this what it was like to be a parent for the first time? Absolutely swimming in uncertainty?

“Which of you put the harness on?”

“Ah, I did, sir.” He very carefully didn’t look at Ramage. “But, sir…” He gestured almost helplessly to where Francis stood, a sleeping Cal cradled against his chest as he answered what questions he could from the more daring seamen.

“You’ve shared the responsibility, haven’t you?” Ramage said with a resigned sigh.

“Yes, sir. All the way through.”

“Well. We shall be sorry to see both of you go.” Ramage merely raised an eyebrow at James’s startled noise, and added, “Dragons are notorious hoarders. I highly doubt he’s going to let either of you stay behind. Though I would be much obliged if you and Mr. Wagstaffe would continue the majority of your duties until we put in at Gibraltar and determine what your next course of action is.”

Look after a new dragonet while continuing to perform his duties as the _Calypso_’s first lieutenant? No tall order there.

James finally looked at his Captain. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Aitken. Though, if you don’t mind me saying, you and Mr. Wagastaffe have a hell of a road ahead of you.” Ramage stepped closer and inspected the dragonet. “What have you named him?”

Francis smiled wide enough for the snagged eyetooth on the right side to be visible. “Calypso, sir. He picked it himself.”

Ramage wore an expression similar to the one he’d had when the men had named the batteries on Diamond Rock, and James bit the inside of his mouth in order not to laugh.

“I shall put his name on the muster book,” Ramage said. “Congratulations again, gentlemen.”

“Thank you, sir,” they said together.

Cal snuggled deeper into Francis’s arm, oblivious.

* * *

Life carried on much like it always had. With enough inquisitiveness to kill a frigate full of cats, Cal put his snout in just about anything and everything he could in an effort to learn. He learned mathematics and navigation from Mr. Southwick-- usually while looking over Orsini’s shoulder -- how to read and study maps with Mr. Ramage, and the day to day running of the ship from everybody else, including the lieutenants. If Cal wasn’t up on deck sunning himself or napping after eating his own body weight in freshly slaughtered sheep, he was watching Stafford and Rossi splice rope or patch sails or reading in the gunroom with Kenton. At night he’d curl up with either James or Francis, whoever wasn’t on deck for duty, and the pair of them had gotten in the habit of keeping their cabin door pinned open so he could freely move between the two.

Occasionally, if there was an issue requiring both James and Francis, Cal would crawl in with Kenton or Baker.

Which worked for everyone involved right up until Cal was too big to fit down the ladder.

“I can tuck my wings,” Cal protested.

“You’ll hit your head.” Which said nothing of the fact that Cal had taken to sleeping on the floor of the gunroom since he’d stopped being able to squash himself into a cabin about a week ago. “It’s not going to be comfortable for you.”

Cal drooped.

“Captain Ramage has given you permission to sleep on the deck at the stern,” James said brightly. Granted, Southwick had overseen the careful movement of weight below decks to ensure the ship was properly trimmed; Francis had helped him move much of it, and emerged absolutely filthy by the time they were done. Even Cal had recoiled from him until Francis had gotten cleaned up.

“You’ll sleep there as well?” Cal asked.

James hadn’t planned on it. The further north they went the colder it was, and the temperature had begun to dip uncomfortably cool in the night. If he had his coat and maybe his tartan for another layer….Cal was larger than the launch and gave off a great deal of heat, too.

“Aye, I’ll sleep up here with you,” he finally agreed.

Cal nudged him affectionately; James set his feet to avoid going over backward.

“And Francis?”

“If he’s not on duty, then perhaps,” James said.

Cal nudged him again, and, unprepared for it, James stumbled back and abruptly sat down on the deck, much to the stifled amusement of a nearby group of seamen.

“Jamie?” Cal leaned forward, clearly concerned.

“I’m fine.” Nothing bruised except for his dignity.

Seemingly satisfied, Cal went off along the deck to see what everyone else was doing. James heaved a sigh and climbed back to his feet.

* * *

Francis was considerably less sure about this than he had been five minutes ago. Then again, five minutes ago he’d had both feet securely on the _Calypso_’s deck. Now he was strapped securely to Cal’s ever-increasing harness and situated behind the dragon’s wings.

“You’re sure you’re stable?” James asked.

“I’m not going anywhere.” It was a haphazard system to be sure, but Francis was fairly confident he wouldn’t plummet to his death if Cal made any sharp, sudden movements. 

James reached up and patted Francis’s boot before going around to Cal’s head. “You’ll be careful with yourself, aye, wee beastie?”

“**Of course**,” Cal answered in Gaelic. “**If I drop him I shall have to fish him out again.**”

Francis absolutely _didn’t_ like the sound that came from James’s mouth after whatever Cal had said. “What did he say? James. James, what did he say?” He gripped the harness strap in front of him a little tighter, his knuckles white.

“You’re alright with heights, right, Fran?” Pete asked.

He snapped around and glared. “What -- ”

“Francis?” Cal’s neck was doubled back as he looked at his rider.

“Yes?” Francis faced front again and they were in the air, Cal’s wings beating against the pull of the earth as they headed for the clouds like an arrow. He opened his mouth to yell and it was lodged in his throat. He looked over Cal’s shoulder and dear God, there was the _Calypso_ looking like a toy instead of a ship of war so very, _very_ far down.

The straps were holding. The wind whipped by. And Francis discovered he was smiling like an absolute lunatic as bright, boyish joy bubbled in his chest.

Cal banked tightly, testing the limits of his angled wings, and Francis let out a whoop. Then his stomach dropped into his knees as Cal tipped into a dive, wings tight to his body. Francis swore his rear came off Cal’s back when they leveled out, skimming lightly across the waves, close enough for Cal to dip his razor=sharp talons into.

“Ooh, tunny!” Cal abruptly dipped; Francis thumped onto his back again hard enough to jolt the breath out of his lungs. Cal flew in large, slow circles well on the starboard side of the ship while he ate his prize, dripping entrails and blood into the ocean, which attracted more tunny, fish, and the occasional shark.

It was very much like a self-serve buffet.

“Shall we go get Jamie?” Cal asked.

“If you’re not tired,” Francis said as they winged back to the _Calypso_.

“I want to take him, too.” Cal landed carefully as he could and the _Calypso_ still dipped beneath his weight.

Francis unhooked himself and fell more than climbed off Cal. His legs were made of water, and he staggered against Pete on his way to the deck.

“I’m fine,” he said as no less than three people and a young dragon moved toward him. “Didn’t quite have my legs under me.”

James, pale beneath his lingering sunburn, looked between Cal and Francis. He visibly steeled himself, and accepted Baker’s leg up onto Cal’s back.

Francis hauled himself upright again with Pete’s help, calling, “Remember to breathe!”

Cal looked back to make sure James was properly tethered, and then they were gone in a sweep of wings.

* * *

There was a covert in Dover, and Ramage had sent word ahead by way of a fast-moving mail packet to expect a dragon of uncertain parentage and two officers. Cal had grown bigger -- big enough to take James and Francis flying together -- and he stood regally on the _Calypso_’s stern, the Captain and entire ship’s company turned out in their Sunday best to see the three of them off to their new service in the Corps. James and Francis had consolidated their belongings into one sea chest now strapped awkwardly in Cal’s hastily-rigged belly netting. What they left behind they’d already divided up between Baker, Kenton, and Orsini.

Ramage had gifted them the book he’d had on dragons, along with several other volumes carefully surrounded by oilskin and further protectively wrapped in James’s clan tartan.

“You’ll have to actually write legible letters, Pete,” Francis said quietly. “Somebody will know where to find us once they’ve sorted out this jump between Navy and Corps.”

“As though you’ve sent a letter since you’ve come to sea,” Pete scoffed.

“I wrote to my mother.”

“Once,” James added unhelpfully. “You wrote her _once_ and it was to tell her you were alive after the news of the Diamond Rock affair reached England.”

Francis made a rude gesture; James outright laughed.

“Look after yourselves and each other, right?” Baker said.

“Aye, we’ll do our best,” James said.

There were more handshakes all around. Finally, the pair of them stood before Captain Ramage.

“I look forward to reading about your successes in the _Gazette_, gentlemen,” Ramage said, shaking their respective hands. “I’ve no doubt you’ll do us all proud.”

“Thank you, sir,” James said, followed shortly by Francis’s, “Sir.”

Ramage laid his hand on Cal’s nose. “You carry us with you in your name. Calypso. Again, I’ve no doubt you’ll do us proud.”

“Captain.” Cal nudged Ramage gently in the chest.

Francis, being a couple inches shorter than James, used James’s offered leg up in order to get a higher hand on Cal’s harness and get situated. James followed him up shortly after; they checked their harnesses and patted Cal on the side of the neck -- one on each, their preferred signal -- and looked back one last time at the ship they’d both figured they’d serve on for at least a few years.

Still. James found he wouldn’t change how things had turned out.

“Three cheers for Calypso and the lieutenants,” Southwick bellowed.

Cal waited until the second huzzah to take to the air, and the third one followed them into the sky toward the coast.

They happened on a group of French dragons in the night on accident. James didn’t know a damn bit of French, and he knew Francis’s vocabulary was not only miniature but his accent was atrocious, according to Mr. Ramage.

Cal’s, on the other hand, was flawless. He answered back appropriately.

“We need to do something,” Francis whispered in his ear.

“Cal?” James called. “**We have surprise on our side.**”

“**What can we do?**”

What indeed. They had no formal combat training, and James wasn’t going to be much help giving directions if he was going to be hanging on for dear life to the harness.

“**Do you best, and then make for the covert. You remember where it was on the map**?”

“Do you have your pistol?” Francis whispered.

“Aye.”

“**Hold tight**,” Cal said.

James’s knuckles were white where his hand wrapped around the harness; Cal put on a burst of speed and threw himself into a barrel roll toward the nearest French dragon, jaws open and spewing fire.

“He breathes fire! He breathes fire!” Francis yelled excitedly, and everything after that exploded into chaos.

They woke the entirety of the Dover covert, and that was probably what saved them. Francis was limp in his harness, James doing his best to hold him upright with an arm that didn’t seem to want to work. Cal was visibly struggling, and the moment the immense Regal Copper appeared in the air, Cal ducked down underneath him and made for the nearest empty patch of grass he could find. He stumbled on the landing, the clearing not as empty as he thought it was, and tried every trick he knew from landing on the _Calypso_’s deck to avoid the much larger dragon already there.

The world slewed around sideways; James yelled as his already painful arm wrenched further, and he let go of the harness with his left hand to wrap both arms around Francis. The front of his shirt was dark and wet; James had peeled his coat back to see where he’d caught the musket ball but it was dark and there was so much blood…

Cal finally came to an unsteady stop. There was a blissful moment of silence in which James had the very, very relieving thought that they were all still alive, and checked frantically that Francis was still breathing so he couldn’t be made a liar.

“James?”

“Here. I’m here. We’re here.” James leaned forward and patted the side of Cal’s neck.

“Francis?”

Francis’s head lolled to the side, sickly pale in what little light there was from the moon.

“Francis?” Cal twisted, trying to see. “Francis? James, where’s Francis?”

“He’s right here,” James said. He struggled to hold Francis upright and get him out of the harness that ¾ miraculously ¾ had held in the face of all that. His fingers shook against the mess of knots and buckles. “He’s -- he’s here. He’s breathing.” The voices and noises grew louder; Cal shifted back toward the shelter of the shadows near the trees, though it wouldn’t matter.

James finally got him loose. “Cal? Can you take him? Gently now.” He waited until Cal’s claw was steady, his talons splayed as wide as possible. He half-shoved half-lowered Francis; Cal cradled him gently away out of sight. Jamie took his knife to the remaining straps on his own harness in the name of speed, and managed to make his unsteady way to the ground by the time the first men with torches had found them. He put himself between them and Cal, who had curled Francis behind his forelegs and out of view.

Thank God they still wore their Navy uniforms, though James wasn’t certain it would make a difference.

“Spies?” someone demanded in English.

“No,” James said, his accent thickening. “British.”

“Get Captain Laurence,” someone else said.

More people arrived bearing more torches and before long there was more than enough light to see by. Including the arrival of the Regal Copper and a black dragon that certainly hadn’t been in the book Ramage had given them.

“What’s all this then?” The Regal Copper thundered. “Where did the little dragon come from?”

“Little?” Cal bristled, and blew smoke out his nostrils.

“He breathes fire?” The black dragon leaned forward and Jamie nearly took a step backward. “He’s a French dragon?”

“British, thank you,” Cal snapped.

“Cal!” James looked over his shoulder.

“You are his Captain, then?” James struggled to find the new voice until he saw someone in an Aviator green coat clearing waiting for an answer.

“It’s -- it’s complicated.” Yes, he’d put a harness on Cal, but Francis had been there with him every step of the way since they’d found the egg in a French frigate.

“You _stole_ him?”

What on earth? How in hell was one supposed to _steal_ a dragon? James bristled.

“He did not _steal_ me, and if you suggest such a thing again I shall squash you,” Cal said with more venom than Jamie had ever heard from him.

“_Cal_,” Francis said from somewhere near Cal’s chest, barely loud enough to carry. “Enough. Let me up.”

“No, you are injured.”

James shifted his weight briefly to his left and then immediately back to his right again. The larger black dragon settled forward, peering closely at James and assessing him with one very large, very blue eye. “Where did you come from?”

“His Majesty’s Ship _Calypso_,” James said, “under the command of Captain the Lord Ramage.”

“Laurence,” the dragon said excitedly to the blond man who had just arrived. “Laurence, they are from the Navy.”

“I see, my dear.” Laurence patted the dragon on the nose. “Where did you get the dragon? A Flamme-de-Gloire?”

“One of his parents was, certainly,” James agreed. “He’s got Anglewing wings.” He didn’t look over his shoulder. “Cal? Can you show them your wings?” He watched the various assembled faces as Cal did just that.

“Let me up?” Francis’s voice was breathy, and James wondered how in the world he was still conscious.

“You are _bleeding_, Francis,” Cal rumbled. He’d evidently tucked his wings against his body again, or wrapped them in front of him to further shield Francis.

“Where did you get him?” Laurence repeated.

“From a French frigate we took as a prize.” His legs shook and the entire right side of his torso throbbed in time with his heartbeat. “We looked after him for three weeks in the shell, and he hatched about four weeks ago.” He swayed. “Captain Ramage sent a letter ahead with a mail packet. It should be here.”

“You said ‘we’,” someone else pointed out. “Dragons have one captain.”

James was momentarily speechless. He looked helplessly from the man who had spoken to Laurence, and more people in Aviator green coats poured into the back of the clearing. Laurence stepped closer and dropped his voice to ask, “Did one of you Run?”

Cal hissed, Francis swore loudly, and James went so lightheaded he nearly fell over.

“Goddamn it, Calypso, you let me go _right now_.” Francis was furious from the sound of it.

“No,” he said, finally having found his voice, “and I’ll ask you never to repeat such slander against a King’s officer again.” The words were very nearly swallowed whole by James’s accent and there was movement just off to his right and behind him, and he couldn’t help but look.

Francis was pale as a damn ghost, blood smeared all the way up his neck to his ear. How he was upright was a bloody ¾ no pun intended ¾ miracle, though if he went down and James tried to catch him they’d both be in trouble.

Laurence eyed them dubiously. James had no idea what the man was thinking, except it couldn’t be good. Francis trembled visibly from head to foot, and Cal probably wasn’t much better.

“I’ll submit to whatever investigation you wish to make,” James said slowly, properly enunciating so there couldn’t be any misinterpretation. “So long as you don’t harm either of them. Fran took a musket ball to the chest from a French rifleman, and I don’t think Cal took any damage, but if you’d look him over I’d be much obliged.” He lowered his voice and looked Laurence in the eye, adding, “And I don’t care what you do to me as long as they stay safe.”

“I have your word as an officer?”

“Aye.”

Laurence turned to the man nearest him. “Get the wounded gentleman to the doctor. Mr. Keynes, if you’ll see to Cal?” He said the name hesitantly; James nodded.

Francis turned feverish brown eyes on James. “James? James!” He jerked away from Laurence’s men and nearly fell over. “James, you bloody -- get away from me -- James Aitken what did you _do_?”

“Temeraire, you’ll stay with Mr. Keynes, please?” Laurence asked.

“Of course.”

“Francis?” Cal edged closer to James.

Francis was still yelling when they took him out of sight, and James hoped he’d eventually forgive him.

“Mr. Aitken?”

“Aye. A moment.” He spun on his good leg and looked at Cal’s acid green eyes. “They won’t hurt you, I promise. And one of us will be back with you in no time. They have to sort this all out, that’s all.” He stroked his hand down Cal’s nose. “Aye, my wee beastie.” He pulled Francis’s pocket watch from the inner pocket of his frock coat -- it had originally belonged to Francis’s grandfather -- and held it out. “Look after this for us?”

Cal whined, and the sound just about broke James’s heart. The three of them had never been parted since they’d found Cal’s egg.

“Wee beastie,” James said fondly. Cal finally held out his claw; James looped the delicate gold chain around his talon. Then he turned around and went with Captain Laurence, limping badly away from his miserably keening dragon and hoping to God he was doing the right thing.

They didn’t go very far. James was ushered into tent and followed by both Captain Laurence and a couple of men James assumed were some of his officers. He swayed where he stood, his shoulder throbbing mercilessly.

“Laurence, that shoulder has to be put back in,” one of them said. He turned to James. “How long have you been like that?”

“I dinnae ken,” he said honestly.

“Can you do it or should we get Mr. Keynes?” Laurence asked.

“I can do it. Learned from the doctor. Common enough thing. Lieutenant John Granby,” the man said by way of an introduction. “It’ll be easier without your coat.” He at least waited for James’s consent to carefully strip his coat from his back. “Were you a captain?”

“First Lieutenant.” Jamie allowed Granby and the other man to lead him to a nearby chair and sit him down.

Laurence pulled over another chair and sat opposite. “I’m not familiar with the _Calypso_.”

“She’s a captured French prize.” Granby did something to James’s shoulder that made it hurt like _hell_ for a moment, and then it was better. He breathed heavily through the black spots dancing across his vision. “Started -- Captain Ramage’s first frigate was the _Juno_. Took her out of Chatham dockyard. Diamond Rock. Martinique.” He blinked tiredly and did his best to stretch out his left leg. “Dispatches in the _Gazette_.” His knee felt the size of a watermelon. “Took the frigate as a prize, then found an entire convoy. The _Calypso_ should be somewhere in the Channel by now.”

“And if we send a messenger to Mr. Ramage, is he going to tell us he willingly sent two offiers with a dragon, or that he sent the dragon’s captain and his lieutenant Ran?”

Every muscle and bone in James’s body stiffened in anger. “That’s twice. There will not be a third.”

Laurence seemed to take that in stride. “My apologies. I was a Navy man myself. The _Reliant_.”

“Captain William Laurence.” He dipped his head and added, “Sir.”

“Cal is a Flamme-de-Gloire?” Granby asked.

“Calypso,” James said, almost reluctantly. “He named himself, after the ship,” he added. “Everybody called him Cal, with his permission.” He smiled wryly. “We think he’s a cross between a Flamme-de-Gloire and an Anglewing. He corners brilliantly.”

“He should maybe be the same size as Temeraire,” Granby said thoughtfully. “He breathes fire?”

“He lit up a Petit Chevalier,” James said flatly. “I’m nae going to forget that anytime soon.”

“And he’s got some growing to do,” the man who hadn’t introduced himself yet.

James sagged.

“If we take you back to your dragon, do I have your parole?” Laurence asked.

It took a moment for the words to register; they finally did, and he nodded. “My sword’s in Cal’s belly net. Ye can have it with my parole.” He heaved himself to his feet and nearly grayed out completely. He snagged his coat from where Granby had tossed it.

A boy ran forward from the darkness. “Sir -- the other dragon is with Temeraire. He’s alright, sir. Mr. Keynes says he wasn’t injured.”

Now if he could have word that Francis wasn’t going to die anytime soon, he would be a more content man and also reassure their dragon.

“Thank you,” James murmured. He limped after him and Laurence; Granby and the unnamed man brought up the rear of their little group.

Cal looked small next to Temeraire’s bulk. He bounded forward as soon as he saw James and nearly knocked him off his feet. James’s leg had finally had enough; his knee buckled, and he found himself abruptly on the damp ground.

“James?” Cal nosed him, clearly worried.

“**I’m only tired, wee beastie**,” James said, slipping into Gaelic. Something glittered in the low light of a nearby torch over Cal’s shoulder, and he leaned out a little further to see. “**Aye, that’s clever. Someone put our pocket watch on your harness.**”

Cal practically preened. “**Everyone should see it. I won’t lose it.**”

Of course he wouldn’t. “**I’m not worried.**” He heaved himself to his feet again. Lord, he wanted to lie down somewhere.

“You may lay over here again,” Temeraire said. “I do not mind.”

Cal curled into Temeraire’s side. James detoured to where someone had piled their meager belongings from Cal’s belly net; James pulled his tartan out, the wool warm and dry, and it smelled vaguely of Francis’s soap. He wobbled his way onto Cal’s foreleg, wrapped himself in his tartan, and almost immediately went to sleep.

The doctor hadn’t locked the door to the sick room under the assumption that Francis couldn’t stand let alone think about sneaking out to find James and Cal. A quick, bleary search of the room revealed a wardrobe with a couple of fresh shirts -- much too large, though it hardly mattered -- a coat in a horrendous shade of bottle green, and a spare blanket. He pulled the shirt and coat on carefully, mindful of the new stitches in the meaty part of his shoulder (he’d been lucky not to break his collarbone, or so he’d been told), and maybe he should have taken at least a little of the laudanum they’d offered him.

As it was, he stumbled drunkenly down the stairs and had to pause at the bottom to get both his wits and his bearings. He didn’t know where they had taken James. Cal, on the other hand, Francis was reasonably sure they hadn’t moved.

It took him several long minutes to find a door to the outside where the clearings were. His head throbbed in time with his shoulder, and he vaguely remembered Bowen saying something once about blood loss and its effects. He almost wished he’d paid a little more attention, though he’d been more worried about James, since he’d been the one actively bleeding at the time.

Francis staggered into the first clearing and almost fell headlong into that huge Regal Copper. Said Regal Copper opened a very, very large eye.

“You’re looking for the little dragon,” he rumbled.

He was too tired to be offended Cal had been called little. “Yes.”

“Peters, take him to Temeraire’s clearing. Quietly.”

“Thank you,” Francis said. The Regal Copper grunted, and then went back to sleep.

He followed Peters through the dark and finally -- finally-- there was Cal curled against the larger black dragon he’d briefly seen earlier. He heaved a sigh. Cal lifted his head, rumbling happily, though he very carefully didn’t move.

Francis noticed the pocket watch on his harness when he drew closer, and fondly said, “Little Magpie,” stroking Cal’s nose. He noticed the lump on Cal’s forearm. “James?”

“Asleep,” Cal whispered. Or tried to.

James didn’t stir.

“He’s very tired, and I think he’s hurting,” he added.

“We’ll knock some sense into him tomorrow.” Francis stroked Cal’s nose. “May I lay on your back? I have a blanket.” He smiled. Cal would only permit him up there and exposed to the weather if he didn’t feel rain was coming or if Francis had a blanket.

Cal leaned away from the black dragon’s bulk in order to place him gently on the shoulder of the leg James was sleeping on. Francis made himself comfortable on Cal’s back, wrapped in the blanket. It took him several long minutes to fall asleep, but he finally did, listening to Cal’s deep breathing and James’s occasional snuffle.

Half the covert was in an uproar at an ungodly hour of the morning. Someone had gone to check on the Naval officer who’d been shot in the night and found him missing. Shouting had started. Doors slammed. John Granby was rousted out of his bed too soon after he’d fallen into it, and in an effort to let Laurence get some rest, he’d forbidden anyone from so much as breathing down the corridor Laurence’s room was in.

He pulled his coat on. If there was anyone who might know where the man had gone it would be James, and the last John had seen of the man he’d been heading to see his dragon.

Temeraire’s clearing was quiet when he arrived. The younger mixed breed dragon was snuggled against Temeraire’s side. He had most of the coloring of a Flamme-de-Gloire, though he didn’t have the curled, ram-like horns around his face. His wings were definitely from whichever parent was the Anglewing.

There was a person wrapped in Scottish tartan on Cal’s foreleg. That was most likely James, if John’s ear for accents ¾ and his years in Scotland ¾ was correct. Which meant the man in a bottle green coat and further wrapped in a blanket on Cal’s back was the covert’s wayward patient.

“Granby?”

John stepped over to Temeraire and stroked his nose. “Our other guest snuck out of his sick room.”

“All three of them are sleeping peacefully. Calypso has two captains,” he added.

“That’s not done,” John said. “There’s usually only one.”

“They raised him partially in the shell and then out of it.” Temeraire was mindful not to move. “James, Francis, Peter, and William. They raised him in the gunroom until he grew too big.”

“The lieutenants?”

John swore internally. He’d been trying to _prevent_ Laurence from having to come out here.

“And a midshipman,” Temeraire added. “His name was Orsini.”

“What else did he tell you?” Laurence asked, settling on Temeraire’s foreleg and gesturing for John to make himself comfortable.

“He speaks three languages -- French from the first ship, Scots Gaelic from James, and English. He hatched in the gunroom.”

“Who harnessed him?” John asked, unable to stop his curiosity.

“Francis cleaned him, James had the harness, and Francis fed him. He stayed in whichever cabin one of them was in. He is very attached to them both,” Temeraire added thoughtfully.

“And they’re both here,” Laurence said, mostly to himself.

“Two captains,” John said. “I’ll be damned.”

“Ramage let them both go. That’s the miracle for me.” Laurence patted Temeraire’s scales reassuringly. “Bad enough to lose one good officer, but two?”

“Cal wouldn’t have chosen. He would have fought to take them both.” Temeraire’s tone was matter-of-fact. “They’re both his.”

“Beg your pardon Captain,” Keynes said, having arrived only slightly out of breath. “The Naval officer has escaped.”

“On foot?” Laurence asked dryly. “His dragon is right there, is he not?”

“Yes.” Keynes apparently took a second look at Cal, followed shortly by a third. He sighed heavily. “Next time we’ll bolt the door.”

John did a bad job of stifling a laugh in a cough.

“I have Lieutenant Aitken’s parole,” Laurence said. “He’s not going anywhere, and if he’s not going anywhere then the other two aren’t going anywhere, either.”

“That explains the second sword you acquired,” Temeraire said, rather thoughtfully.

“Taking an officer’s parole means he relinquishes his sword and gives his word he won’t try to escape,” Laurence explained at John’s otherwise confused expression. “On a ship, he’d be allowed to move freely about provided he stayed out of the way of the men and didn’t cause any trouble. He’s more a guest than confined prisoner.”

John rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Do we believe them, then?”

“Admiral Lenton returns today and if he received a letter from Captain the Lord Ramage, then we have two new Aviators and a mixed breed dragon.” Laurence shrugged.

He inhaled sharply. The last time a dragon had been born on one of His Majesty’s Ships there had been several tense moments where they had tried to remove Laurence from Temeraire, and that hadn’t turned out the way a certain senior captain had envisioned. John had no doubt that if anyone tried something similar with Cal and his lieutenants then the result would be much the same.

Keynes had been looking in on both men and dragon while John and Laurence continued to talk, and came back, arms crossed over his chest. “Let them both sleep for now, and when they do wake, if we can get them somewhere warmer to further check them over, that would be best. Sir,” he added, “what age can you test for the exam?”

“Twenty-one,” he said. “Though they’ve probably been at sea since 10 or 12.”

“Ten,” said a soft Highland burr from the lingering shadows. “My father was a sailing master, and the captain promised him he’d at least give me a start.” He sniffled, his eyes tired, and he seemed to still be favoring one leg. “Francis went at 11, and he’ll be 22 in a few months.” He wrapped the tartan wool more securely around him.

“I’ll want to look at that leg later,” Keynes said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

“Aye. How’s Francis?”

“Well enough to sneak out of his sick room and sleep on the back of a young dragon.”

James snorted. “That’s Francis.” He seemed a little hesitant, and added, “His mother still lives in London. May we, once Captain Ramage’s letter is found and read, have leave to visit her?”

John looked at Laurence. Rather than dismissing the request outright, he seemed to think it over. Finally, Laurence said, “It shall be up to Admiral Lenton, and I will put in a good word for the both of you based on your initial conduct.”

He was more amused than he should have been watching James process all of that.

“Thank you,” James said slowly.

“Come with me, lad, and we’ll get you looked at,” Keynes said, taking James by the elbow. “Some food, too.” James nodded, limping alongside the surgeon.

Well. And here John had thought the most interesting thing to come out of the Navy recently was William Laurence and a Chinese Celestial dragon. Who knew he’d be wrong.

Francis woke some indeterminable time later pleasantly warm and with his upper chest throbbing mercilessly. From the heat and feel of what he was lying on, he was on Cal’s back. He blinked, and pushed back the edge of a familiar tartan to see a little better.

“Francis?” Cal rumbled.

He pushed himself up and patted Cal’s shoulder.

“He’s upright,” a small, piping voice said.

“Francis? Shall I help you down?” Cal peered anxiously back at him.

“Please.” Francis half-moved half-fell into Cal’s claw, blanket and tartan and all, and was brought gently back to the ground.

“This is Roland,” Cal said. “She is one of Temeraire’s runners.”

He started slightly at the pronoun. The Corps had women? Well, alright then.

“This is Lieutenant Francis Wagstaffe,” Cal continued.

“Pleasure,” Francis croaked. Lord, he sounded rough. “Where’s James?”

“He’s with Mr. Keynes,” Roland said. “He’s resting.”

“Did someone look at his leg?” The fool had probably broke it and didn’t even realize it.

“Mr. Keynes did.”

“Good.” He turned to look at Cal’s nearest acid green eye. “Have you eaten recently, little magpie?” Francis hadn’t been sure it was possible for a 10 ton dragon to look guilty, but lo and behold, Cal did. “I’ll go find James, and you go find a sheep or two to eat.” He heaved himself to his feet and stumbled out of Cal’s claw, patting a talon on his way by. He rolled the tartan -- James folded it a certain way and it became his kilt, though Francis didn’t know _how --_ and wound it through the strap on Cal’s harness. He asked Roland for a shoelace and double checked that the chain on the pocket watch wouldn’t come loose.

“All set, little magpie,” he said quietly, rubbing Cal’s nose with his good hand. “Go eat.”

Cal launched himself into the air.

“This way, sir,” Roland said after a moment. “I think I know where they took your friend.”

If she didn’t, Francis absolutely didn’t mind wandering around and making a quiet nuisance of himself until James popped out of the woodwork. He kept the blanket wrapped around him, partially to hide the hideously bottle green coat aviators wore, and mostly because he was cold. Keynes, the man who had patched him up the night before, had chalked it up to blood loss. Mr. Bowen had said the same thing when James had taken that French boarding pike in the shoulder, though it hadn’t taken long for James to get feverish, either.

Baker had found James by the capstan that night absolutely out of his head. Thankfully, Francis had coaxed him back down the gunroom before the captain had been aware of the situation.

He was conscious of a large number of curious stares in his direction, and while none of them had anything on Mr. Ramage’s _I am disappointed in you_ glare, Francis straightened his shoulders anyway. He was, still, a King’s commissioned officer. So was James. As far as Francis was concerned -- and until someone said otherwise -- he was going to assume the rank merely transferred between the Navy and the Aerial Corps.

“How old is Cal, sir?” Roland asked.

“Four weeks.” And he was already the size he was. Francis almost couldn’t imagine how big he’d get in another couple of weeks let alone months. “How big is he going to get?”

“Eighteen to 20 tons, sir. Near the size of Temeraire.”

Well. At least they weren’t the only ones to have a dragon named after a Navy ship.

“In here, sir.”

“Thank you, Roland.” Francis eased into the covert’s infirmary. The room was quiet; James occupied the only bed, his grotesquely swollen left knee propped up on pillows. Since that leg was outside the blanket he was under -- presumably for the doctor to have better access to it -- he wore a hideously hand-knitted sock on his left foot.

“And there’s my other wayward patient.”

Francis had the grace to flush.

“Come here, let me take a look at you. See if you busted anything open when you shouldn’t have.”

James didn’t so much as twitch. Francis hesitated.

“A touch of laudanum in his porridge,” Keynes said, completely unrepentant. “Or I could have let him hop himself into the ground until he dropped from exhaustion.”

“Your patients are typically much larger than humans, aren’t they,” he muttered, taking a seat. He let Keynes peel back the layers until he got to the bandage, snipping through the clean linen and exposing the neat stitches.

“Healing well, no sign of infection.” Keynes gave him some new bandaging.

“Did he break his leg?”

“He did not. All the bones in the leg are intact, the knee functions as it should despite the fact it’s the size of a pumpkin.”

Francis put himself together again, though he left off the borrowed Corps coat. “I think it got caught in the harness.”

“The scraps of leather and buckles masquerading as a proper dragon harness?”

He bristled. How in hell were they supposed to know there was a dragon egg in the bottom of that frigate? They’d done the best they could under the circumstances.

“Easy,” Keynes said in that deep voice more suited to the dragons he healed than a man. “We can get him fitted for a proper fighting harness and get you fitted out, as well. Which of you is the captain?”

“Both of us.” Francis crossed his arms over his chest, grimacing at the pull on his wound. “We were both there when he hatched. He went to both of us.”

“The Admiral may want you to choose.”

Cal would probably sooner burn his own tail off.

“James, then,” he said. “I was the second lieutenant. He was first. If they insist on having one of us be captain on paper, then it’ll be him.” He wasn’t worried about it. There was no way in hell Cal and James were going to let him be left behind.

“That wouldn’t bother you?”

“That I wouldn’t be captain?” He snorted. “James sailed a captured French frigate through a French convoy and was all set to be promoted to post-captain for it, and turned them down because he felt that he hadn’t learned enough from Mr. Ramage yet. Do you know what an occasionally thankless job being the first lieutenant of a frigate is? There were aspects of command we were both still learning.” Mostly how to not get himself or the men under his command needlessly, painfully killed. “Besides, paper is one thing and day to day is another. Cal has the two of us, and the two of us have him.”

Hell, his grandfather’s pocket watch, the only family heirloom the Wagstaffe family _had_, was currently hanging from the harness on a 10 ton dragon. Seemingly overnight Francis had gone from being a Second Lieutenant in His Majesty’s Navy to captaining a dragon in His Majesty’s Aerial Corps. Cal was his and James’s to look after.

It was, very suddenly, a _lot_.

“Breathe, lad.” Keynes wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pushed him forward. “Breathe. In and out.”

Francis did his best to obey. Something somewhere was making this awful wheezing noise, and it took him several moments to realize it was coming from him. 

“That’s it. I think it all caught up with him, sir, that’s all.”

Which meant there was someone else there to witness Francis’s complete and total lack of control, though he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment, not when it felt so damn hard to make his chest move.

Eventually, the band around his lungs loosened. He took an unencumbered breath, and Keynes let him up. James was still oblivious, and the newcomer in the room was the black dragon’s captain. Laurence, was it? He accepted a glass of wine from Keynes and looked between it and him dubiously.

“It’s not, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Francis took a sip and then it aside. He took a breath for composure, and looked at Laurence. “Sir.”

Laurence pulled a chair over. “Mr. Aitken gave me his parole.”

“His sword is in our sea chest. Mine’s there, too, if you’d like that as well.”

“Admiral Lenton will be arriving sometime this afternoon, and then we shall get to the bottom of this letter from Lord Ramage.”

“Captain Ramage, sir,” Francis corrected as gently as he could. “He prefers not to use his title in the service.”

“He is Admiral the Earl of Blazey’s son, is he not?”

Francis glanced toward a still-oblivious James, then looked at Laurence’s blue eyes. “Yes, sir. He still prefers not to use his title.” James had explained it to him one time since Southwick had explained it to him. Something about senior post-captain’s not having a title and where did they sit at an admiral’s table in relation to a junior post-captain who _had_ a title, and it was fairly confusing to someone who hadn’t been born into the landed gentry.

After all, James was a Highlander and Francis the son of a London seamstress. Laurence was painfully proper, and most likely titled.

“Mr. Aitken also asked if you might have leave to visit your mother in London, and I assured him I would at least bring it to the Admiral’s attention,” Laurence continued. “When was the last time you were home?”

“I was 17. Almost five years ago.” He glanced at James again with absolutely no earthly idea when he’d last been to Scotland. “When did you go into the service, sir?”

“The age of 10. My father had intended for me to go to the Church, and yet the sea had always called.”

James shifted with garbled sound.

“He’s done that once or twice,” Keynes said. “He had some recent scar tissue on his shoulder.”

“French boarding pike,” Francis said. “Two schooners ranged up beside us in the night. I was officer of the deck when it happened. We repelled boarders and took them both as prizes. We then used them both to cut out the _Surcouf_ from Fort Royal Bay, and the _Surcouf_ was later bought into the service and renamed the _Calypso_. Baker, the third lieutenant, was under orders to take one of the schooners to Barbados.” He chuckled humorlessly. “It sank halfway there and they rowed the rest of the way in one of her boats.” Baker and the rest of his men had spent about a week in the hospital after they’d finally arrived.

“You were serving primarily in the Caribbean, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

James grumbled again; a full sentence this time, though not in English.

“Some react oddly to laudanum,” Keynes admitted.

“He didn’t take any when Mr. Bowen offered it to him,” Francis felt compelled to say.

He sat bolt upright with a yell, flinching away from the first person to come at him, which happened to be Keynes. Francis stood quickly and swayed enough for Laurence to pop up immediately next to his elbow.

“Easy, lad,” Keynes said. “Your friend is right here.”

“Fran?” James leaned forward until he could see Francis. “Where’s Cal?”

“He was off to find something to eat when I left him,” Francis said. He glanced at Laurence.

“He and Temeraire have returned to Temeraire’s clearing. “He was quite eager to show off his gold pocket watch and something he called his clan tartan.”

James looked sharply at Francis.

“I tied it to his harness,” he admitted. “It’s quite handsome against his scales.”

“He’s a handsome wee beastie, to be sure,” James said with a sigh. “It’s his now ¾ you know he’s not going to let me have it back.”

Francis dropped heavily on the edge of James’s bed. “You have another one, don’t you?”

“Aye, another hunting tartan and the one for formal occasions.” James looked thoughtful. “Perhaps if I offer him the choice he’ll choose the formal one.”

“Or he’ll decide he needs them both.” Cal had some magpie tendencies. And, in the grand scheme of things, neither he or James were going to do anything other than make that habit worse.

James muttered something that sounded like, “God help us.”

“Someone will see about settling you two into some rooms after you’ve been released from Mr. Keynes’s charming company,” Laurence said.

“Thank you, sir,” they said, one after the other.

“I’d prefer it,” Keynes said after Laurence left, “if the two of you would be considerably less stubborn than the average dragon, and _rest_.”

Francis patted James on the arm and heaved himself once more to his feet.

It was highly recommended to James that he not put any weight on his left leg for at least a couple of days -- Bowen would approve, Francis thought -- which left Francis as the more mobile of the two of them. Nor did it matter that someone, in an effort to make up for the previous night, had locked them in. Not that it made a difference; Francis had spent some time with Stafford and his lockpicking set. He didn’t have Staff’s set, though he improvised appropriately.

There was no one on guard in the hallway, which Francis suspected would change. From the ruckus in the covert late in the afternoon the admiral had returned, but nobody had come to speak with him and James, and Francis didn’t hold out much hope of having any answers in a reasonable time.

James was sleeping comfortably -- without the aid of laudanum -- even with his knee the size of a large gourd.

Francis slipped through the halls and out onto the still grounds. He gave the Regal Copper (Maximus, he’d heard someone call him, and he absolutely lived up to that name) a wide berth, and found both Temeraire and Cal settled in behind Lieutenant Granby who appeared to be reading to them. There was also a much smaller gray dragon there, as well, and it was the gray dragon who spotted him first.

There were such things as little dragons, but the one in front of him was still the size of a cart horse.

“That’s Francis,” Cal said happily. “He’s one of my captains.”

Francis came closer. The gray dragon circled him.

“He’s very much like Sam Stone,” Cal added.

“Ah. Alright.” Sam Stone was one of the carpenter’s mates on the _Calypso,_ and while he was able to follow instructions, he wasn’t…he was a little behind. With this in mind, Francis patted the little dragon’s nose. “What’s your name?”

“Volly!”

He was certainly an excitable creature. Volly returned to his spot next to Cal.

“Little magpie,” Francis said with a wide smile. Cal nudged him gently in the chest, eyes closing as Francis stroked his soft nose. “Captain Laurence said you showed him your pocket watch and tartan.”

“He said they were very handsome.” Cal tipped his head toward Granby. “Lieutenant Granby said the same.”

“Thank you,” Francis said sincerely, looking over at Granby while still stroking Cal’s nose. “Do you mind another pair of listening ears?”

“Not at all,” Granby said. “Did they not lock you in tonight?”

“They tried, certainly.” He made himself comfortable on Cal’s foreleg.

“You should get James’s tartan so you don’t get cold,” Cal said.

“In a little bit. James sends his love. He’s not supposed to put any weight on his left leg for a little while longer, so he’s a bit stuck.”

“Sleeping, I hope?” Granby added.

“Peacefully, when I left him there.” He looked at Cal. “You know he’ll be back out here with us as soon as he can be.” He looked at Temeraire and noted he wasn’t wearing his harness. “Do you want your harness off?”

Cal seemed to consider it. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Francis shifted until his shoulder stopped screaming at him. “My apologies, Mr. Granby.”

“Gladly accepted, Mr. Wagstaffe.” Granby found his place in the book once more and, in the light of a nearby torch, began once more to read.

“I do not understand,” someone said loudly at some ungodly hour of the morning, “how you keep _misplacing_ a man who has been shot less than three days ago. Most especially from a room with a _locked door_.”

Francis curled more completely under James’s tartan and hid a smile.

“What did the other one say when you asked him?” the same voice continued.

“He refused to say anything,” a new voice said -- Keynes, Francis recognized ¾ and sounded thoroughly exasperated for his trouble. “The two of them were in there when I left them in the evening.”

“And yet there is only one of them there this morning.”

From the subtle shaking beneath him, Cal found the current conversation as humorous as he did. He’d probably find it all the more humorous if Francis told him the stranger sounded like Southwick did when Orsini and the younger lieutenants absolutely bollocksed their mathematics. They were all good men, but goodness, Francis had once overheard that Baker had worked it out so they were somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland when they had, in fact, been in the vicinity of Barbados.

“Their dragon is still here, which means they’re both still here,” Keynes said gruffly. “He’s still young yet, only about four and half, five weeks out of the shell. Cross between a Flamme-de-Gloire and a Anglewing. We haven’t seen him fly yet, except for when they arrived at the covert, but he does breathe fire, and he should come up around 18 to 20 tons at full growth.”

Cal was awake, definitely, though clearly mindful not to move too much because of Francis stretched out on his back, head near the base of his neck.

“Another one from the Navy?” the first voice asked, and Francis couldn’t interpret his tone.

“Found him in the hold of a captured French frigate.”

There was a heavy sigh. “We stole another Navy captain?”

“No,” Keynes said thoughtfully. “Two lieutenants, instead.”

Francis smothered a chuckle in his fist.

“Two?” Whoever it was choked audibly, and Francis had a hell of a time staying silent. “Why the devil did they send us _two_?”

“I have two captains,” Cal said matter-of-factly. “James and Francis.”

“Lieutenants.”

“Senior lieutenants.”

The stranger laughed, and it wasn’t full of good humor. “Still not worth a salt when it comes to an experienced aviator on a middle-weight dragon.”

Francis flailed for a handhold as Cal suddenly shot to his feet. He splayed out with a yelp, sliding across Cal’s scales like water off a frigate’s deck.

“Do not,” Cal rumbled angrily, “speak of either of them like they’re green midshipmen. Both of them have seen numerous actions and I will not have you doubt their courage or I shall squash you.”

That was twice now Francis had heard Cal threaten bodily harm to someone. This was the same dragon who had peaceably curled up with Orsini on make and mend days and listened to him talk of his childhood in Volterra while feeding him scraps of mutton and teaching him some Italian. Cal’s Italian didn’t hold a candle to Ramage’s, Orsini’s or Rossi’s, but it was _passable_ by the barest definition of the word.

“Let’s perhaps not rile him quite so much,” Keynes said, aiming for placating and missing by a mile.

“If we offered you a seasoned captain, and allowed him to keep your men as lieutenants, would that suffice?”

Francis hauled himself upright and placed his palm on the right side of Cal’s neck.

“No,” Cal growled. “I will not take another, and if you harm either of them, then I shall harm you in return.”

He looked over and down, and found both Keynes and the new man. Who wore the green coat of an aviator and the bars of an admiral.

“Cal,” Francis said in warning. “Easy, magpie.”

“I will not, Francis.” He snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils. “He has insulted you and James -- and Mr. Ramage and the rest of the Calypsos -- and I will not allow him to do it again. Nor will I allow him to separate the three of us. Mr. Ramage called the two of you my captains, and he is the most sensible man I know.”

Well, not even Francis could argue that.

“He is an admiral,” Francis said, folding James’s tartan once more and looping it around the front strap of Cal’s harness. “He deserves our respect.”

Cal snorted, though he didn’t say anything. Francis didn’t know whether to be worried or grateful.

“I take it you’re one of the captains in question, then,” the admiral said impatiently.

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Francis Wagstaffe, formerly of His Majesty’s Navy. Help me down, Cal?”

Reluctantly, Cal offered him a claw and deposited him on the ground. He stayed close, crouched behind Francis like a large, irritable house cat. From the low swishing sound, his tail was even lashing.

Right then, in front of an admiral, Francis was aware of just how damn shabby he looked. He hadn’t shaved in _days_, he couldn’t remember what had happened to his blue uniform coat, and the shirt he was in was at least a size and a half too large for him. There were blood stains on his breeches and probably in his hair by his ear from when he’d been shot and then flopped around on the back of a dragon, and his boots were hopelessly scuffed.

If Mr. Ramage were there, Francis would have been in for the roughest side of his tongue -- and Mr. Ramage could be very cutting when he deemed it necessary. Still, Francis squared his shoulders and did his best to look like he was, indeed, a lieutenant in His Majesty’s service.

“I am Admiral Lenton, commander here at the Dover covert,” the admiral said, looking Francis up and down appraisingly. “In the pile of correspondence building on my desk during my absence, I came upon a very interesting letter from one Captain the Lord Ramage of His Majesty’s Ship _Calypso_.”

Francis didn’t hardly dare to breathe.

“He speaks highly of you and Mr. Aitken,” Lenton continued. “Indeed, he referenced several dispatches in the _Gazette_ which have lately been published. I have someone searching for copies as we speak,” he added. “Now, this is not the first time we’ve had a dragon hatch aboard a Navy ship, and I dare say it most likely will not be the last the longer this war drags on, but this is the first time we’ve had a dragon come to us with _two_ captains. And I must admit I am quite at a loss for how to proceed given, generally, how the structure of command traditionally works.”

“James physically put the harness on him, sir,” Francis said in the tense moment of silence following Lenton’s words.

“Mr. Aitken tells me you were the one to feed him,” Lenton countered.

“Yes, sir.” Standing at parade rest pulled his shoulder, so he kept his arms by his side.

“Well,” he said briskly, “the Admiralty will either approve the promotion of two captains or they won’t, in which case one of you will be listed as captain and the other as lieutenant.”

Which wasn’t anything less than Francis thought they might do. “Thank you, sir.”

“In the mean time, the two of you will recover, get some appropriate uniforms, and get your dragon…”

“Calypso,” Cal said proudly.

Lenton sighed deeply. “We will get Calypso rigged out into a more appropriate harness. You may also, once you have a uniform befitting an officer in the Royal Aerial Corps, have the leave you asked for to go to London.”

“Thank you, sir,” Francis said reflexively, though he didn’t remember asking for leave to London.

But James would have. James knew Francis’s mother still lived there and also knew he hadn’t been back in half a decade. He’d have to see if James might be given liberty to go with him.

“For now, if Temeraire is agreeable to it, I recommend you stay here.”

“Lieutenant Aitken gave Captain Laurence his parole, sir.” Francis swallowed rather thickly. “May we assume that’s no longer necessary?” They were, after all, still in the King’s service.

“You may, provided none of the three of you decide to go haring off on your own without so much as a by your leave,” Lenton said sternly. “I’d like no trouble between now and the time when we get everything sorted out with the admiralty.”

“Absolutely, sir,” he agreed quickly. As though he were going to say anything other than that.

Lenton nodded first to him, and then Keynes, and then left the clearing. Cal settled back on his haunches like an overgrown cat.

Francis gestured at Keynes -- who simply raised an eyebrow at him -- and immediately turned to Cal. “You have to stop threatening to squash people who threaten us.”

Cal looked so highly affronted at that it was very nearly comical.

“Officers, at least. Our own officers. You cannot threaten to squash an admiral.”

“He insulted you and James.”

Francis rubbed his hands over the scruff on his jaw and looked helplessly over his shoulder at Keynes. He threw his hands up and backed away, the traitor.

“Little magpie,” he started, stepping closer when Cal dropped his head. He sighed. “You cannot threaten our admirals. James and I have to answer to them, and you can disagree with them -- in private, to us, in a _low_ voice -- but you cannot openly mutiny. Please.”

“Mr. Ramage has not always agreed with admirals,” Cal pointed out.

“Mr. Ramage is also a post-captain. Even if he were to somehow be released from the service he is an Earl’s son, and has inheritance to fall back on. If James and I were released…” He thought for a moment and had to scramble to come up with something that wasn’t _we’ll probably be hanged_ or _we shall probably be poor and penniless_ and that also didn’t end with _and they will take you away from us_. He sighed again. “Dearest little magpie, if we were dismissed from the service then they would probably take us from you. And then where would the three of us be? Out of sorts, definitely. I don’t even think they’d let us go back to the Navy, and by then Mr. Ramage would probably have a full compliment of officers again, and there would be no room for us.”

There was the chance, considering the kind of man Nicholas Ramage was, that he’d do his best to take James Aitken and Francis Wagstaffe back onto the muster books, but the reality was that, at the very least, James and Francis would probably be dead and Cal sent off somewhere before that happened.

“I shall try to do better,” Cal said at last, if rather grudgingly.

“That’s all we can ask.” He stroked Cal’s nose.

“Can I ask that you _stay where we put you_?” Keynes growled. “If for only one night?”

“I can try.” Francis grinned at him.


	2. Will Always Lead Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As usual, things gets worse before they get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers for liking it enough to make it to the second chapter! 
> 
> Ya'll are fabulous.
> 
> Also, here's the Squick warning from the previous chapter again, just in case anybody needs it again. 
> 
> **MAY SQUICK: If you're not a fan of blood, injury, descriptions of blood, descriptions of injury - everything from gunshots to stab wounds to getting a knee wrenched by an improvised harness, then I ask you read with caution. There is also a moment where a character is threatened to be shot in the genitals with a pistol. (He does not get shot.) There is also period-typical derogatory remarks about someone's heritage. Again, you folks know your limits, I'm just giving you the heads up that it's in there. If there's anything you think I should mention here that I failed to, please don't hesitate to send me a message and I'll amend this portion of my author's note.**

One of the more startling things to get used to was the fact that aviators took meals in a more communal setting than they were used to. Granted, the gunroom had become their communal space, but it wasn’t as though Captain Ramage joined them more nights than not.

Conversation predictably dipped when they entered the dining hall, and James sucked in a sharp breath, hoping it was due more to the outward state of them than their mere presence. Keynes had forbidden him from shoving his still swollen leg and knee into breeches again, so he’d had Francis grab his other hunting tartan for him from their sea chest in the part of the clearing Temeraire had given them to use. It was blue and green, and much more subtle than the red, blue, and green squares in his formal one.

It would also, he noted wryly, go a damn sight better with the bottle green aviators wore than his formal.

Francis’s blue uniform coat had been a total loss, and in an effort of solidarity they’d agreed to forego coats altogether. Francis wore his only remaining pair of clean breeches, his waistcoat, and had rolled his shirt sleeves to his elbows. James was in a similar state, except he had almost the entirety of the extensive bruising on his leg visible due to his kilt.

John Granby waved the pair of them over to a table composed of Captain Laurence and several others wearing captain’s bars they hadn’t met yet. James limped over and sat rather heavily.

“This is James Aitken and Francis Wagstaffe,” John said once everybody was seated. “They’re Cal’s -- Calypso’s -- captains. He’s the mixed breed dragon that Temeraire’s allowing to share his clearing right now,” he added. “They came to us from the Navy.”

“You brought your own first lieutenant?” a rather large man to the right of Laurence asked.

“Ah, no sir,” James said, his accent accidentally thick. He had to work to lighten it. “We’re both lieutenants.”

“So which of you is to be Calypso’s captain?”

They were going to need to get better at answering that question or things were going to get even more awkward in a hurry.

“Who harnessed him?” another captain asked.

“I did,” James admitted, and then quickly added, “But Fran fed him.” There were a number of disbelieving stares directed their way. “We had him about three weeks in the shell.” He glanced at Francis for confirmation; Francis nodded, and slid slightly closer so he could press his thigh to James’s.

Some of the tension went out of them both.

“He speaks three languages,” Francis pointed out. “French, Scots, and English.”

James refused to flinch under the scrutiny.

“Oh,” John said, like he was startled. “You’re Scottish then?”

_That_ did a marvelous job at giving all of them a laugh and further dissipating the tension in the room.

“Scottish as the day is long,” James said with a smile.

“Our main training covert is up at Loch Laggan; if you get sent there for training you should feel right at home,” Berkley, James thought his name was, said.

“Aye, sir. Can’t beat the Highlands.”

Slowly, over the course of dinner, the pair of them relaxed further. The aviators were a much more informal lot, and that was absolutely going to take some getting used to. Still, mindful that their promotion hadn’t officially gone through the admiralty, he and Francis kept up a steady of obedience that was just about as ingrained in them as any other part of their naval training. Laurence looked at them approvingly several times throughout the meal, and they were able to relax a little further as John took them on an abbreviated tour of the covert.

“Are you sure you’re supposed to be on that leg?” John asked as they stepped out into the early evening air.

“Aye, I’m supposed to start using it again to loosen the muscles,” James said. He was well aware it was almost painfully slow going. “And I’d like to see the wee beastie.”

“He’s grown another five feet,” Francis said flatly.

“He’s still my wee beastie.” He stumbled over the uneven ground; Francis caught him under the arm, holding him steady until he’d found his footing again. “Ta, Fran.”

“Cal’s quite polite,” John said as they started walking again. “Not as proper as Laurence.”

“Mr. Ramage isn’t even as proper as Captain Laurence,” Francis muttered.

“Cal spent quite a bit of time among the ship’s company as a whole,” James said quietly. “Mathematics and navigation with our sailing master, splicing rope and patching sails, even some time with the carpenter.”

“He went through gunnery practice with Jackson one morning.”

James remembered that -- Cal had coiled himself around the lean American’s shoulders while he and his gun crew loaded, ran out, and fired their gun.

“He spent quite a bit of time with Captain Ramage.” James eyed the sheer size of the Regal Copper with some wariness. “Reading maps and who knows what else. He doesn’t really talk about it, and we never really asked.”

“Remember when he thought Will was drowning? Does Temeraire swim?” Francis asked.

“He does. Someone fell in?” John edged into Temeraire’s clearing.

“Baker had gone for a swim. Cal went in to rescue him.” Which would have been all the more comical if him flinging himself off the deck hadn’t made the entire ship rock. “’Course, he’s the size of a cart horse then and it’s a wonder he didn’t land _on_ Baker.”

“How did he get back on board?”

“He had to swim to land and then fly over,” Francis said. “Baker we just hauled out.”

Cal had indeed grown at least another five feet and put on the accompanying weight for it. He bounded over happily as soon as he caught sight of them, nudging James hard in the chest with his nose and nearly bowling him over. James laughed, struggling to keep his feet; Francis caught him under the elbow again.

“James,” Cal rumbled. “Are you better?”

“I’m healing, wee beastie,” he said. He glanced at the rest of the dragon. “No harness?”

“They’re fitting me with a new one. Roland put your tartan and Fran’s pocket watch in your sea chest.” He nuzzled at Francis. “When can you go flying with me again?”

John quietly moved over to talk with Temeraire, giving them some privacy.

“Once they’ve made your harness and our harnesses, then we’ll see.” Francis stroked the side of his neck that he could easily reach. They cradled his huge head between them, Cal rumbling happily and smoke curling from his nostrils.

“Temeraire has been very kind,” Cal said.

“We shall have to think of someway to say thank you,” James said, glancing at Francis. They didn’t have much by way of possessions between the two of them, and while they had earned some prize money during their time with Mr. Ramage, James wasn’t sure how much they had available to them.

“We’ll figure it out,” Francis said quietly, as though reading James’s thoughts. “It might not be much, but if it’s shiny it might do.”

Thank God for the magpie tendencies of dragons.

“Won’t be anything close to what his own captain can get for him, but I’m sure he’d understand.” James thought briefly about simply handing over his sword, and then figured he might have need of it later. Though how, exactly, one fought with a sword on the back of a dragon was a bit of a mystery.

“Haven’t had a chance to pick up any new books for you, but we can certainly find one to read.” Francis went over to their battered sea chest. It was technically his; James’s was exceedingly careworn, and they’d left it for whichever new midshipman might have need of one. There was the oilskin with the books they’d had, including the ones Mr. Ramage had given them. And there, underneath, was something else.

It was a book on celestial navigation accompanied by a rolled piece of paper. There was a note written inside the flyleaf.

_Francis & James,_

_May you always have fair winds, gentlemen, and if you find you do not, may you trim sails accordingly. _

_Congratulations and Good Luck_

_-H. Southwick_

“What is it?” Cal asked when Francis brought it over.

“Mr. Southwick sent us a gift,” Francis said, his voice slightly choked. “A book. And.” He handed the book to James to hold while he unrolled the paper. It was a beautiful water color drawing of Calypso in mid-flight over the ocean. Southwick had seen it often enough from the quarterdeck to have done it from memory, and that he had committed it to paper and sent with them…

Francis held it up for Cal to see.

“Oh.” He crouched to see it better. “Mr. Southwick is very talented. That’s for us?”

“And the book.” James smiled, and it was more wobbly than he’d care to admit to. “We’ll have to write him a letter.”

“We shall.” Cal eyed his likeness on the paper. “I am quite handsome, aren’t I?”

And evidently vain as a cat. “A very handsome wee beastie, you are.”

Cal preened, and then settled on the ground. Francis rolled the watercolor painting up again and tucked it away somewhere safe, back into the sea chest. James took his usual position on Cal’s foreleg; Francis still needed a helping hand to get to Cal’s shoulder. He stretched out, opened the book, and began to read.

* * *

It had been a week and they still hadn’t heard back from the admiralty yet. In the meantime, a curious feeling had settled over members of Temeraire’s crew and the covert in general, though James didn’t have a damn clue what it meant.

The more pressing thing to deal with, however, was the arrival of his and Francis’s new uniforms from London. Keynes hadn’t permitted him to wear breeches yet, so James was still dressed in his kilt. His knee, on the other hand, had shrunk a little. He slid his new coat on, doing up the buttons, and hen turned to look at Francis with an uncertain, “Well?”

Francis, his own coat thrown on haphazardly over his rumpled shirt with a pair of new, brightly-white breeches in his hand, simply stared.

“It cannae be that bad,” James said flatly.

“It fits you well enough,” he said slowly, as though he were carefully picking his words. “It’s….your hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” His hands automatically went to smooth it into something more presentable, though he knew it was fairly hopeless; it had a mind of its own most days, and it didn’t help if he’d spent anytime on dragon-back.

Francis looked so visibly _uncomfortable_ as he debated his next words that James very nearly wanted to shake him until he finally spit out, “It’s red!”

“Russet,” James hissed reflexively.

“Aye.” He nodded. “Go look in a mirror.”

“It’s _russet_.”

“Aye,” Francis repeated, the same way he’d done when Mr. Ramage had pointedly asked him something he didn’t want to answer. “Russet.”

James stepped into the small washroom adjacent to the room they’d been given to share, looked at his reflection, and promptly choked. He hastily turned back to Francis. “I look like a walking Christmas decoration!”

Francis refused to say anything and smothered whatever his mouth might have been doing in the fabric of his new coat.

“Don’t you dare,” James warned.

“If you put on your formal kilt it’ll be like you’ve got stripes,” Francis choked out.

“Oi!”

“Cal’s got stripes, you could match him.” He sidestepped James’s hasty grab. “It’ll be very dashing.”

“**You absolute shite**,” James said loudly in Gaelic; Francis lost his control, and doubled over laughing. James had him in a headlock shortly after that while Francis slapped him ineffectually with open palms anywhere he could reach that wouldn’t do any sort of real damage.

“What in hell is going on in here?”

They froze and looked guiltily toward the doorway. No less than four people stood there -- two of which were Berkley and Laurence -- and they flinched away from each other under the current scrutiny. With no answer readily coming, James felt it best to keep his mouth shut. Francis evidently felt the same, as he was just as silent.

“I think you might well have stayed in the Navy,” John said from somewhere over Berkley’s shoulder.

James flinched like he’d been slapped; Francis’s shoulders straightened painfully. Someone crowded in the doorway sucked in a sharp breath.

“You mistake my meaning,” John continued, meeting James’s eyes. “I simply meant the uniform would have clashed less with your hair, seeing how red it is.”

This effectively took the tension out of the room.

“It’s russet,” Francis said quietly, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Someone snorted. Loudly. That seemed to set them all off.

“Well, at least your dragon won’t mind,” Berkley said, slapping James on the back and nearly sending him staggering sideways into Francis.

“Can Cal even _see_ color?” Francis asked. “Can he?”

Several people shrugged.

“We could ask him,” James said. “Later, when we go down after dinner?”

“Just make sure it’s light enough that he can see the contrast of your green coat and James’s red hair,” John said in what James thought he meant as a helpful tone.

“Russet,” James and Francis said together, which didn’t help matters if the increase in laughter was any indication.

Francis had been caught up in conversation with John and Captain Chenery, and James had used the opportunity to get a head start out to see Cal. He liked to go the feeding grounds early so he could spend time with James and Francis without Temeraire there, and Temeraire was nice enough to indulge him.

The sun was very nearly set. His knee had loosened up though still horribly swollen, and the bruises had finally -- _finally_ \-- started to completely fade. He hummed thoughtfully as he passed through Maximus’s clearing; the Regal Copper must be at the feeding ground. Or maybe on his way back. Their schedule was between him and Berkley, and if there was something he was coming to terms with it was that each dragon and captain had a vastly different way of handling things. There were similarities of course, but in the end, they were each as individual as their dragon.

Cal even more so, as he had two captains.

Speaking of which, James didn’t immediately see Cal upon entering his clearing. Was he not back yet? Unease crept into his belly, and he almost wished he’d hooked his sword on. (He’d decided against it as they were still in the covert; there was no need.)

Still, he leaned down and drew the knife from the sheath in his boot. “Wee beastie? Cal?”

Nothing.

The hair on the back of his neck rose. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he needed to find Francis and Cal and --

He turned and found himself staring down the muzzle of a service pistol.

“Drop the knife,” the man said slowly, and James had expected to hear French-accented English instead of a carefully cultivated drawing room tone.

“Where’s my dragon?” James said. His fingers tightened on his knife. If he stalled long enough, Francis would arrive. What, exactly, he’d do when he got there was questionable, but he’d come.

“Safe, for now, and safe he’ll stay if you do exactly as you’re told.”

“And if I don’t?”

“We’ll kill you and drag your dragon off to the breeding grounds.”

“He’d cook you where you stood,” James said with unwavering certainty. “You’d never make it.”

“And you’d still be dead,” the man said coldly. “Now, come with us and you and your dragon will live.”

“Jamie!”

James turned; the gun discharged, and he marveled, ears ringing, that it hadn’t hurt as much as he’d expected. Francis looked absolutely horrified, breaking into a run only to come up short as someone else stepped out of the lengthening evening shadows. James was yelling -- he could feel the burn in his throat -- but he couldn’t hear a damn thing. Francis looked confused in the half-light, his wide brown eyes luminous in his pale face as the man from the shadows slid the sword from his body. He screamed Francis’s name over and over again as he was hauled away, still not sure _how_ he was alive, and keeping his eyes on Francis’s even as he folded gracefully to the ground.

His right ear was ringing mercilessly and every sound coming into his left was as though it were under water. He fought like mad, like hoards of French sailors were coming up and over the _Calypso_’s bulwarks and he needed to protect the quarterdeck. There were at least half a dozen men and he didn’t stand a chance but he couldn’t -- Christ, Francis was back there on the _ground_ \-- and his fists connected one more than one occasion. He might have gotten one of them between the legs, too.

Someone kicked the side of his knee and he went down in a heap with a yell. Another person hauled him up by a handful of his hair and there was Cal looking as distressed and angry as James had ever seen him. Had he seen what they’d done to Francis? Oh, God, how was he going to explain that?

There was more talking James didn’t understand because he couldn’t hear. Cal shook his head miserably in response to whatever he’d been asked. James took a punch square in the face because he couldn’t hear someone coming, and blood streamed from both his nostrils. He was wearing his new coat, too.

This was not how he’d intended to break it in.

Cal very reluctantly agreed to whatever they’d demanded. James fought the hands holding his arms back and got a slap for his trouble.

They’d gotten Cal’s new harness on him. In fact, every person James could see was wearing a harness and carabiners.

“Like fuck you’re taking my dragon,” he snapped, and, as he couldn’t hear the words, he wasn’t entirely sure they’d come out in English.

It earned him another slap that left his other ear ringing. Cal roared, and it was loud enough to penetrate the fog around James’s head. James made them bodily take him, struggling against the arm around his throat from behind. The last thing he saw before he passed out from lack of air was Francis’s unmoving body on the damp, twilight-lit grass.

A dragon covert and a shipyard had a startling lack of similarities. Ramage wasn’t surprised by this. What he was surprised by was the sheer amount of chaos the Dover covert seemed to be in. He had to have looked out of place in his Navy-issue blue coat, hat under his arm, and yet not a one person had looked at him sideways let along inquired as to what he was doing there.

“ -- in the clearing, run through with a sword. Keynes is with him now,” someone said, hurrying past and into the building.

“Excuse me,” Ramage said loudly, though he was largely ignored.

“Have they found James?”

“James Aitken?” Ramage said in a voice loud enough to be heard over half a gale.

The two aviators looked at him.

“You’re from the Navy,” the first one muttered. The second, however, looked at Ramage closely, head tilted to the side.

“Are you Lord Ramage?” he asked.

“Captain Ramage, yes.”

“Come with me, sir,” he said. “Dyer, go find Captain Laurence and tell him he needs to get the infirmary now. Lieutenant John Granby, sir,” he added, once Dyer had run off. “Please, come with me.”

“May I ask what’s going on?” Ramage shifted his hat to his other arm to put a hand on his sword so it wouldn’t slap against his leg as he hurried downt he hallway after Granby.

“There’s been a bit of a -- an incident,” Granby said, clearly cagey about sharing information with an outsider. He paused outside the door to the infirmary and looked closely at Ramage. “It’s -- we’re not entirely sure what’s happened, sir, but Francis is alive. He looks dreadful, but he’s alive.”

Ramage had seen Francis Wagstaffe leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of having his appendix removed, and he’d honestly thought the man one short breath away from dying. Bowen was a hell of a physician, though, and he’d performed the surgery in a carefully partitioned area of the deck at high noon for maximum light.

“I can guarantee you it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” was all Ramage said.

“Yes, sir,” Granby said, and opened the door.

Francis, if possible, looked _worse_ than he had before Bowen had removed his grotesquely swollen appendix. Someone had made an effort to clean him up, though there was still blood smeared across his chest, back, and side. He was propped up on his left; two neat lines of black stitches showed where the sword had run him through, the wound on his front a little wider where it sliced him further coming out.

“Keynes,” Granby said softly, “this is Captain Ramage of His Majesty’s Navy.”

“Sir,” Keynes said, dipping his head. “He’s damn lucky, if it didn’t hit anything vital. If it did, well, I imagine he’d have either bled out entirely or he’ll do it at some point in the night.”

Sweat glistened along Francis’s throat, collarbones, and hairline. His breathing, though slow, had a ragged edge to it.

“Has he been awake at all?” Ramage asked.

“In and out,” he said. “Said something about Jamie having been taken and maybe shot, but we’re not sure if that’s what happened or if it’s something his mind has come up with. His fever’s risen already. If Temeraire had come back any later then, well…he’d most likely be dead,” he added flatly.

“I sent you two of my best officers,” Ramage said, his mouth momentarily running ahead of his brain, “and you’ve potentially gotten both of them killed within the damn _covert_.”

Granby shuffled his feet and looked anywhere but at Ramage and Francis.

“Right.” This was indeed _not_ the reason he had come to Dover, but needs must and all, apparently. Perhaps he should have taken Kenton up on his thinly veiled offer to come along. “A 15 ton dragon can’t be too difficult to find, can it?” Another pair of hands would be useful, and he asked, almost off-hand, “Is there a way we can get another of my officers here quicker than the stage?”

Granby glanced between Keynes and Francis, and finally met Ramage’s stare head-on. “Yes, sir.”

James had no idea where he was. He thought they’d gone north. Maybe. His right ear throbbed, and he did his best to keep it tucked into his shoulder. When he’d had earaches and infections as a child his mother had always given him a hot cloth to press to it. James had been around cannon fire and gunshots enough to know it sometimes caused short-term immediate hearing loss -- Bowen had even answered his questions one evening, and had gone so far as to open a few of his medical texts for James to see pictures.

He could have used Bowen then; he wasn’t entirely sure his nose _wasn’t_ broken. It had at least stopped bleeding. Most of his face and neck felt bruised, his ribs weren’t too impressed with him, and his knee had swollen again. He looked, most likely, a sorry excuse for a man let alone an officer.

Huddling against the tree they’d dropped him by, he worked at the rope tying his wrists together. It scratched like a son of a bitch, and he was closer to wearing through his own skin than he was getting free, but it gave him something to do.

As it was, he was unprepared for the man he considered to be in charge to plop down in front of him, pistol at the ready by his side and demand, “Where did you get the dragon?”

James leaned his head back against the rough bark and kept his mouth shut.

He cocked the pistol. “Did you steal it?”

In a manner of speaking, by the strictest definition of the word, yes. Cal’s egg had been in a French frigate.

“Listen here, you filthy Jacobite,” he said with a snarl, “the only reason you’re still alive is because that half breed dragon will go berserk otherwise. Now, as soon as you live out your usefulness -- as soon as he takes a proper English captain -- we can either kill your outright or send you back to your native hill to live out the rest of your sad existence.”

The arse in front of him might have spoken like a man made for the drawing rooms of London Society, but James had served with someone who not only had a guaranteed seat in the House of Lords but didn’t need to flaunt it in order to be respected.

James’s sore mouth twitched at the corners at the thought of Mr. Ramage verbally eviscerating the sad sod.

And if the idiot wanted to insult him because he was a Highlander, well. James had been dealing with _that_ ever since he’d left Dunkeld for the Royal Navy.

Using the same kind of placid, upper tones he’d heard Mr. Ramage use when he was truly riled, he said, clearly in Scots Gaelic, “**Go fuck a sheep.**”

“Your people have been defiant longer than they’ve known what’s good for them,” he snapped. “And if you had any sense, you piss-soaked Highlander, you’d beg me for forgiveness and offer up anything I wanted in recompense.”

Well. James licked blood off his lower lip and blinked tiredly.

“Nothing to say to that?”

He worked some moisture back into his mouth though it tasted like copper; they hadn’t given him anything to drink or eat since he’d woken up. “Virtutis gloria merces.” He curled forward, quick as a snake, and spat on the ground between them. “Glory is the reward of valor.”

James’s shoulders thudded back against the tree as the man snatched up the pistol with a snarl, jamming it not up under James’s chin like he expected but under the bottom edge of his kilt. He froze, hardly daring to breathe.

“Explain to me why I don’t shoot you and let you bleed out like the pig you are?” he said through gritted teeth, his snarling face mere inches from James’s own.

“Because like it or not,” James said in English, mindful to clearly enunciate each word, “I am a commissioned officer in the King’s service and you will have to answer for that. _If_ Calypso leaves you alive.” The barrel of the gun slid further up his thigh and he both refused to flinch and drop his stare from his captor’s. “Do me harm and you lose the dragon. He’d sooner light himself on fire than go with you if you kill me.”

The gun returned to the grass.

James very carefully didn’t release even the smallest sigh of relief. Only when his captor was gone ¾ along with the service pistol ¾ did he relax back into the tree behind him, shaky and sick. He’d heard stories, of course. He’d heard what the English soldiers had done among the Highlanders. He’d heard what they’d done in the name of the Clearances.

It was a hell of a thing, he reckoned, to be both a Highlander and serve the King. James’s father had managed, and, up until now, so had James. But what choice, really, did some of them have? Forced out of their ancestral homes and shoved further into debt they couldn’t repay? He’d come to terms years ago with the idea that he’d never return to Scotland in the same way he’d left it as a child. His mother had done the best for him and his five siblings, but she hadn’t expected him to return once she’d sent him off to sea. She’d done her level best, too, to keep them all on the line between upholding tradition and embracing cold reality.

He hadn’t thought of her in years, much less written her a letter. Not like Francis --

James swallowed thickly. He’d have to -- Lord, he’d have to tell Francis’s mother what had happened to her son. He didn’t have any siblings and his father, well…whether he was alive or dead, Francis didn’t speak of him and James had never pushed. James would ask for leave to go to London to tell her. She deserved to know what had happened, and James wouldn’t put the burden of it on anyone else but his own shoulders.

He hoped someone had found him sooner rather than later. James’s throat burned and he went back to twisting his wrists in an effort to get the knots loosened.

Francis swam back to wakefulness with all the grace of Cal jumping from the ship’s deck to the water. He grunted with effort and everything _hurt_ in a way it hadn’t in a very long time. Hell, the last time he’d been this out of sorts Bowen had knocked him into oblivion via ether and removed part of his intestines the medical community had deemed superfluous and unfortunately prone to infection.

He blinked, then blinked again. Pete had been there for that operation, too, and here he was now, sat beside Francis’s sickbed once again.

“Are you truly awake this time?” Pete asked. “Or are you going to grumble like a bear and go back to sleep?”

He sleepily rubbed the side of his nose. “Bowen been in my insides again?” he mumbled.

“Mr. Bowen’s not here. Mr. Keynes has patched you up. Again, from what I’m told.”

Francis grunted. “Why are _you_ here?”

“The _Calypso_ is in dry dock at Chatham -- we’re swaying out the French guns and getting British ones, finally -- so Mr. Ramage thought he would stop in for a visit before heading to London to see his parents. Good thing he did, too,” Pete added, settling back in his chair. “Though this is a fairly large catastrophe, even for you two.”

“Slander,” he murmured, though Pete might have had a fair point. “Did they get Jamie?”

Pete sucked in a breath through his teeth and Francis _knew_ he only made that sound when he didn’t want to answer the question he’d been asked directly. The gut feeling that something was really _wrong_ woke him up a little more.

“Peter,” he said, trying for stern only to have his voice crack halfway through. “Where’s Jamie?”

“They don’t know. He got taken. With Cal.”

Francis swore. Loudly. And then tried to push himself up.

When he swam out of the darkness a second time, Keynes’s face had joined Pete’s in looking down at him from beside the bed.

“No more of that foolishness if you please,” Keynes said gruffly. “Or I’ll take drastic action and you won’t like it one bit.”

“James saw me fall,” he rasped. “He probably thinks I’m dead.”

“And he’ll know differently once he’s back here and in the bed next to yours.” Keynes crossed his arms over his chest. “People who haven’t been shot and then run through with a sword are handling it.”

Which Francis had had enough experience to know meant _drop it you bloody idiot_ without Keynes actually having to say those words.

“The gunshot wound was mostly all the way healed,” he said, though it was a token protest at best.

“You got yourself skewered.”

He was almost starting to think life had been safer when he’d been in the Navy and that was absurd. The Navy had _cannon balls_, after all.

“Pete?” Francis whispered, his eyes already closing without his say so.

“Yes, Fran?”

“You’ll get my best friend and my dragon back, right?”

Pete’s warm fingers wrapped around Francis’s cold ones. “Of course. Mr. Ramage will think of something brilliant. He always does.”

And that might as well be one of the immutable laws of the universe as far as Francis was concerned. He hummed deep in his throat and closed his eyes again.

Three full days into captivity and James was damn certain he was teetering on the edge of delirium. His wrists were bloody. He was more bruise than regular skin, and whatever progress he’d made with his left leg was probably temporarily lost. Keynes would have a field day.

The man -- Dayes, he heard someone say -- hadn’t made another overt attempt at him, but James was smart enough to know they were all collectively hoping he’d keel over on his own. It had to be the only reasonable explanation of why they were giving him the barest amount of food and water they could get away with, and they were most likely only doing _that_ so Cal wouldn’t mutiny and roast them all.

Now, there was an idea. Except Cal probably couldn’t get to _all_ of them before _one_ of them put a pistol shot somewhere highly unpleasant in James.

They’d shoved him against another tree. At this rate, the back of his neck where his neck cloth and collar didn’t cover was going to be rubbed raw. Still, he was in better shape than Francis since he was alive and Francis was…not.

The pocket watch. It was in the sea chest, and he supposed he’d have to see if Francis’s mother wanted it back. All he could do was ask.

There was movement in the brush to his left, and he lazily tipped his head. Those were people. He recognized…well. The damn bottle green coat the aviators wore. And that was a blue coat, like he’d worn in the Navy.

Funny. That man looked an awful lot like Captain Ramage.

“Mr. Aitken,” he hissed, and, alright, if this was a hallucination his brain had done a hell of a job.

“**You’re not real**,” James whispered.

Ramage stretched out hand, gesturing for him to move. “Come on. You need to come over here.”

What would they do to him if he wandered off? Hurt him? Hurt Cal, most likely. He drew his good leg further toward his chest and shook his head.

“Lieutenant!”

James’s shoulders stiffened reflexively at the tone. Goodness his imagination was _thorough_.

“Lieutenant Aitken, get over here _now_.”

Alright. He wobbled his way upright and staggered toward the bushes. Ramage curled a hand around his arm and tugged him further into the cover of the woods; James jerked as he realized his hallucination was anything but, and he’d seriously contemplated not obeying an order from his commanding officer. Former commanding officer, but semantics, at that point.

“Don’t say anything. Walk, as best you can.” Ramage’s grip on him shifted to something a little more helpful, though James was loathe to lean any weight on him. “There’s a full-on raid going to happen. Granby is going to ensure nothing happens to Cal. Francis sends his regards.”

That was in extremely poor taste.

“He’s dead,” James slurred, as though Ramage somehow didn’t know that already.

Ramage stopped him then and turned James to face him. “James,” he said quietly. “I swear to you, on both my honor as a gentleman and my father’s title, Francis Wagstaffe is alive. He’s even been alert enough to bother the surgeon into threatening to sedate him with either laudanum or ether.”

Well, that did indeed sound like Francis.

“Come here.” Ramage’s tone gentled immensely, and he pulled James in close like James imagined he’d do for a son or favorite nephew. “It’s alright.”

“I watched him die,” James choked out. “He -- he _fell_ \-- ”

“He’s going to be fine. I promise you he’s going to be fine.”

James didn’t even have it in him to be ashamed he was crying quietly into Ramage’s shoulder when all Ramage did was let him, one of Ramage’s hands at the back of his head. Eventually he wore himself out. Ramage produced a handkerchief from somewhere and allowed James to make himself a little more presentable.

“Let’s go get you back to your dragon,” Ramage said, sliding his arm around James’s shoulders and taking some of his weight.

There was an almighty roar from somewhere ahead of them, followed by a flash of light and a wave of heat. James stumbled into something approximating a shambling run, knees feeling like water and his hands still tied. He broke through the tree cover and there was -- _something_ \-- that had been burned beyond all recognition on the ground. Several aviators were trying to put out little fires here and there, and that massive Regal Copper was looming over all of them.

“Calypso,” James bellowed. “_Calypso_!” His throat ached terribly. And then the ground fell away as he was snatched up gently in an enormous claw. He pressed himself backward as best he could, bound hands in front of him as the Regal Copper settled on his haunches and brought him up to eye level.

“Are you listening, little captain?” Maximus rumbled.

James nodded.

“Good. Temeraire is with your dragon as he is very distraught. He has been assured that you are alive, if not well, and once he has stopped smoldering we shall reunite the two of you. Has someone told you of Calypso’s other captain?”

“Yes.” He swallowed thickly. “Francis is alive.”

“Aye, and the ones who have hurt the three of you have either been dealt with or will be dealt with. Humans are so fickle,” Maximus said absently. “I am going to set you down and for the sake of your dragon, you should be looked at by a surgeon. Laurence has offered his.”

“That’s very kind of him.” Dragons, as James had come to realize, didn’t particularly like to share anything. That Laurence -- and Temeraire, by association -- had offered the services of their doctor was slightly unusual but very appreciated.

“I shall set you down now. Your captain shall see to you.”

James almost felt compelled to point out Ramage wasn’t his captain anymore, and then thought that might confuse Maximus, so he let it go. Maximus returned him gently to the ground, and this time once he stumbled out he let himself fall, landing mostly on his rear. He was very tired and there wasn’t a spot on his body that didn’t ache. He planned to do nothing but sit there.

“Jamie?”

Lord, that sounded a lot like Peter Kenton. James turned his head as best he could and it was, indeed, Peter Kenton. There was so much he wanted to say, anything he could ask, and what came out of his mouth was, “Francis is alive?”

“Yes, he is. Saw it with my own two eyes. Even met Keynes,” he added, sitting and leaning his shoulder into James’s. “He’s rather terrifying, in a way.”

“He’s a dragon surgeon,” James said quietly. His accent seemed to be doing its best to swallow his words whole, though he knew Pete had experience with him like this. “People aren’t his usual patients.”

“He’s done a treat with Francis, from the sound of it.”

James rested a little more of his weight on Pete’s shoulder. “I watched him fall.”

“He remembers that. He watched _you_ get hauled away while there was nothing he could do but bleed on the ground.” Pete’s fingers slid into the hair at the back of James’s head. “Someone’s going to come look you over soon. Dorset, I think his name is.”

“Temeraire’s surgeon.”

Pete murmured in agreement. “We’ve picked up a new lieutenant or two in Chatham. A William Martin and Patrick Lehey. They’re a little nervous, but they should settle in fine. I’ve moved into your cabin, Baker’s in Fran’s old one, and yes, the door will most likely still swell and not shut in the heat of the tropics.”

“He was goin’ to shoot me,” James mumbled, his eyes staying closed long and longer. “Not long af’er the Lizard.”

“I remember hearing about that when I came off duty,” he said. He smoothed his thumb back and forth across James’s skull. “Fran had only _just_ gone to bed and you’d woke him up. Though Lacey was going to strangle you both. You can rest, if you’d like.”

James dragged his eyelids open. “Cal.”

“Waiting for Cal?”

“Yes.”

“He might be a little while longer yet. Close you eyes for now, alright?”

For a little bit. At least. He was _very_ tired. Pete never stopped stroking his hair.

“Hello again, Peter.”

“Cal.”

The pillow beneath James’s cheek shifted, but it wasn’t enough to get him to open his eyes. He didn’t have the strength.

“Why is he still bound?”

“Dorset instructed us to leave the ropes until we could get somewhere with better light, a fire, and some other supplies.”

“Not all the way back to Dover, surely?”

“It shouldn’t take long to get back there, is my understanding. You lot were trying to stay unnoticed.”

There was warm breath on his cheek. Still, he couldn’t find it in him to open his eyes.

“Francis is well?” Cal sounded worried.

“As well as can be, all things considered.”

Cal rumbled.

“He’s healing. Again. All his insides are still on the inside, that sort of that.” Pete made a sound deep in his throat. “You’ve also done a terrible job of writing me letters.”

“We have been gone three weeks. Francis has spent one of those in bed recovering.”

“He can still write, then. It’s not as though his hands were broke.”

Cal didn’t have a response for that, and it reminded James of those moments in the _Calypso’_s gunroom when they would tell each other riddles or try to out-logic each other. Pete didn’t go for anything so fanciful as _theory_ \-- he was an officer and dealt primarily in tried and true practicality. Part of it was most likely his upbringing, and there had been one or two times ¾ memorable for the humor, though Cal certainly wouldn’t see it that way -- which Pete had backed Cal neatly into a corner.

Trust a man to be smug in the face of a dragon who would eventually be as large as a ship and most likely possess the ability to render it to cinders in a breath.

“I’m quite sure you shall tell him.”

“Oh, I will. Think they’re going to wake this one up to move him or are we going to haul him like a barrel? Gently,” he added quickly. “We won’t roll him across the ground.”

“I’m beginning to wonder whether Wagstaffe picked up his humor from you or it was the other way around,” a new voice -- Ramage -- said dryly.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m not entirely sure it was a compliment, Kenton.” Ramage sighed. “At any rate, we’re all set here, and Dorset believes it’s best to get back to the Dover covert. Dorset wants Aitken with him on Temeraire, and if you’ll have us, Calypso, Kenton and I will ride with you.”

“I can’t take James?”

“Better to let Temeraire do it right now. I promise you they’ll take very, very good care of him, and I’ve been told it’s only a short flight.”

Cal nosed him very, _very_ gently, his breath ruffling James’s hair. James tried to open his eyes and utterly failed. Instead, satisfied everything was more or less under control, he slipped away further.

James surfaced more reasonably to the irritated sound of Keynes’s voice saying, “Stay _right there_ and don’t move or so help me I’ll sedate you even if I have to pour it down your throat.”

“I can help, you know,” Francis said crisply. “I’m not a complete invalid.” That was the _exact_ same tone he’d used on his gun crew when they were being unruly.

“Laudanum. Lots of it.”

James cracked an eye open and could have cried. There was Francis lying on his side on another bed, blankets pulled to his neck. He was pale, sure, and there were swatches of red on his cheeks to indicate a fever, but he was _alive_ and dear God above James had honestly thought at one point he wasn’t going to see that again.

Francis had finally noticed James was awake and his entire demeanor brightened. “You look like _shite_.”

“And yeh’ve got a face lit a melted welly,” he said fondly, smiling wide enough to crack open the split in his lip again.

He laughed and then groaned. James wiped blood off his chin with the back of his hand and noted the fresh bandages wrapped around both his wrists. He vaguely remembered getting them cleaned -- pulling the bits of rope out of them had hurt like _hell_ \-- and he looked down the expanse of his bare chest to see what other damage he could find.

Bruises. Lots and lots of bruises.

There was something cold on the inside of his thigh just under the hem of his kilt and he flung himself backward to get away from it. He toppled right on over onto the hard floor with a grunt and continued to scramble back, dragging his left leg when his knee wouldn’t bend properly and wedging himself into the first small, defendible space he could find which happened to be the corner by the wardrobe.

“What the hell -- ”

“Jamie!”

“You stay there, I mean it.”

James’s breathing rasped in his ears. He watched Keynes warily, but all the man did was sit on the floor outside of James’s reach. Francis had gone oddly silent, though James didn’t know what that meant, if anything.

“Did Dayes and Rankin do something to you, lad?” Keynes asked as softly as a man with a chest the size of a barrel could. “There’s no shame here. Neither I nor Francis will think anything less of you. Nor will anyone else with any sort of sense,” he added.

“_Jamie_.” That was Francis, and in his tone James heard all the nights in the _Calypso_’s gunroom, all the storms they sailed through -- literally and figuratively -- and all the times they’d gone into battle together. They’d swayed cannons onto the top of Diamon Rock because Mr. Ramage had asked for it.

They’d found a dragon egg in the hold of a French frigate, and rather than toss it overboard and carry on as otherwise ordinary lieutenants in His Majesty’s Navy, they’d kept it warm between the two of them. They’d talked to it, and each other, and while James had grown up the youngest of six and hadn’t lacked for childhood companionship, there was no one closer to him or more trusted than Francis Michael Wagstaffe.

“He threatened me,” James admitted, and it was more effort than it should have been to make the words clear. “Cocked a pistol. Did nae…” He couldn’t say it, and made a couple of gestures, instead. From the way Keyne’s expression darkened, he understood completely.

“Did he -- ”

“_Nae_,” he hissed. “A threat.” A very clear one. A shot there, from that distance, would have killed him. Painfully and slowly and bloody, but killed him all the same. “**From a p****iss-soaked excuse of an Englishman**.”

Francis appeared on the floor next to Keynes then, dreadfully pale and shaking with something other than cold.

“I told you to stay put,” Keynes said.

“**Sod off, you arse**,” Francis growled in Scots Gaelic. James spared a moment to first be startled, then couldn’t help but feel proud. His pronunciation wasn’t terrible, and of course the first thing he’d remember would be the insults he and James had worked on during their downtime moments in the gunroom, stuck in the midst of the Doldrums.

“You should come out of there,” he continued quietly, momentarily ignoring Keynes's glare.

“You should be in bed,” James said, switching back to English.

“I’m fine. Right as rain.” He pulled his shirt -- at least two sizes too big for him -- up enough to show James the line of stitches opposite the scar from when Bowen had removed his appendix. “See?”

James didn’t quite believe it was as easy as that, but he was tired all the way to his bones. He uncoiled from the corner and allowed Keynes to help him to his feet. He sat on the edge of another bed as Keynes hauled Francis upright a bit more gently and got him settled again.

“I’d like to check your knee again, same as before,” Keynes said, dragging over a stool.

“Right.” He wrapped his arms around his bruised torso and nodded.

The rest of the exam passed without incident. Keynes managed to get some food into him, and by that time Francis had fallen asleep again, spots of fever still high on his pale cheeks. James, tucked into his own bed and curled into as tight a ball as he could manage for a man of his height, took a little longer to fall asleep.

Francis was alive. Alive and breathing, if overly warm. He wasn’t dead in a clearing. Cal was safe, most likely curled between Temeraire and Maximus even if he was approaching Temeraire’s size.

“Stop thinking and go to sleep, James,” Francis grumbled.

“**Nanny**,” James said without heat.

“To _sleep_, Jamie.”

He huffed out a small laugh and it caught against his sore throat. He closed his eyes, safe with the knowledge that Francis was still going to be there when he opened them.

They were mostly alright about a week later. James’s knee was still the size of an overgrown root vegetable, but Francis had finally lost his fever flush. Cal was nearly the size of Temeraire -- nearly the size of the frigate he’d hatched on -- and both Kenton and Ramage were thinking seriously of departing for Chatham and London, respectively. Baker, as First Lieutenant, was overseeing everything that needed to be done on the _Calypso_ with Southwick’s help, but Kenton’s help would undoubtedly be welcome.

James remembered that much at least from arriving onboard the _Juno_ when he’d first been assigned as Captain Ramage’s First Lieutenant. The _Juno_ had been in a hell of shape, but he’d put on his second-best uniform, rolled up sleeves, and gotten to work.

“Admiral Lenton has graciously allowed me this privilege, gentlemen,” Ramage said as they strolled unhurried over the uneven ground to where Cal had made himself at home. “Letters from the Admiralty in London,” he continued, “pertaining to your move from the Navy to the Royal Aerial Corps.” He handed them an envelope each.

James bent awkwardly and retrieved the knife from his boot to use as a letter opener, passing it to Francis when he was finished with his own. Inside was the usual heavy-handed wordiness associated with any sort of orders from the Admiralty, and he skimmed ahead where he figured the important parts would be.

Captain James Aitken of His Majesty’s Dragon Calypso.

The edges of the paper trembled slightly in his fingers. He glanced at Francis and found a similarly poleaxed expression.

“Francis Wagstaffe, Captain of His Majesty’s Dragon Calypso,” Francis whispered.

“Congratulations, Captains,” Ramage said, holding his hand out. James shook it with a sense of the surreal.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Ramage,” he said. Then added, “Or, if you’re truly daring, you could go for ‘Nicholas’.”

Francis choked.

“James, then,” James said with a grin. He looked pointedly at Francis, who had finally unlocked enough to shake Ramage’s hand.

“Congratulations again, gentlemen,” Ramage said. “Don’t forget to write -- I’ve been assured dragon couriers are far more reliable than mail packets.”

Francis nodded like his neck muscles had suddenly loosened, and whatever James wanted to say wouldn’t seem to come out of his mouth.

Ramage made his goodbyes to Cal and was on the stage for London later that afternoon. Pete, having been given a generous time frame by which to return to the _Calypso_ at Chatham, took clear advantage of it and spent his last evening at the Dover covert stretched out on Cal’s opposite foreleg while Francis read to him from a book of celestial navigation and James dozed with his head on Francis’s shoulder.

“You must write,” Cal said, once it had gotten late, the night well and truly dark.

“I will. I promise,” Pete said, stroking Cal’s surprisingly soft nose.

“If you do not, I shall find you and set your cabin on fire.”

“I don’t -- I’m not sure -- ”

“Nicholas won’t mind,” Cal insisted, and for the first time since they’d found the dragon egg in that thrice-damned French frigate, James laughed hard enough to cry.

**Two Weeks Later**

Eleanor Wagstaffe allowed the cab driver to assist her into the hansom. She’d been perfectly willing to walk though most of the girls in the shop had said it was too long of a trip on foot, and besides, Francis had already arranged this for her. She was going to see her son for the first time in nearly five years. The last letter she’d received had been post-marked in Jamaica, of all places, and it was filled with a very carefully-worded version of what he’d been up to. Whether that was his own decision or something demanded of him by the Navy, that letter nearly a year ago was the only word she’d received from him.

As far as she knew he wasn’t leaving the King’s service.

He was there, waiting for her when she arrived at the London covert. He looked very smart in his bottle-green coat, white breeches, and polished black boots.

And he reminded her so, so much of her late husband, Michael.

“Mum,” he said once he’d helped her down. He pulled her into a hug.

“Goodness gracious, Francis,” she said when they parted. “Let me look at you.” Her memory of him as a child clashed with when she’d seen him last as a gangly teenager, and now he stood before her, broad-shouldered, a little shorter than his companion, and as solidly built as his father had been. His nose was certainly Michael’s, but Francis had had her eyes ever since he was a child.

“I’d like to introduce you to one of my dearest friends,” Francis said, gesturing to the man beside him. “This is James Aitken. James, this is my mother, Eleanor.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you,” he said in a soft, Highland burr.

“There’s also someone else you should meet.” Francis offered her his arm, and she took it. “Now he’s…he’s not going to hurt you, I promise. He is why we’re no longer with the Navy.”

“We’re with the Royal Aerial Corps,” James said quickly. “Captains.”

“You were promoted?” Ellie just about let her mouth drop open in shock.

“Yes.” Francis led her to a clearing. “We found him. And then we couldn’t leave him.”

“Who?”

They rounded a small copse of trees and she stopped dead. There was a dragon in front of her. He was the size of a ship, his scales colored black and burnt orange, and he surveyed the world with two acid-green eyes. He crouched low to the ground as though to make himself less threatening, and she noted he wore a harness of tooled leather.

Something glinted from his harness, up near the shoulder.

Ellie let go of her son’s arm and stepped closer. It was a pocket watch. It was a pocket watch and the chain was wound with red, green, and blue tartan, the whole of it tied to his harness strap.

“That’s your grandfather’s pocket watch,” she said, turning to Francis.

“And James’s clan tartan,” Francis said quietly.

“They are my captains,” the dragon said. “And I could not ask for better men.”

Ellie went closer. He laid his head on the ground between his massive claws.

Francis stood on one side of her and James on the other, and they each put a hand on the dragon’s very, very large nose. “This is Calypso. Cal, this is my mother, Eleanor.”

Cal rumbled happily.

Of all the things in the world, Ellie had never thought _this_ was her son’s future. And yet here she was in a clearing just outside London, steps from the dragon her son was Captain of. Her father’s pocket watch hung tangled with Highland tartan from his harness, and James Aitken looked at both her boy and the dragon as though there were no better company in the whole of Britain.

Gently, as though she might startle one of the four of them, Ellie put the flat of her palm on Cal’s nose, and said, “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

He edged forward, still so careful to be unthreatening, and nuzzled her like a particularly large cat. She laughed, utterly delighted.

“Do you want to go flying?” Francis asked.

“With the three of you? Yes, of course.” She stroked Cal’s nose and watched his large eyes close partially with content. “My goodness.”

Francis talked her through putting on a makeshift harness.

“Gently, wee beastie,” James said as Cal lifted her delicately up to the base of his neck.

“Of course,” he said, matter-of-factly.

They made sure she was strapped in properly -- carabiners, Francis called them -- and instructed her where to hold so she’d be steady.

“It’s odd, at first,” James said. “Remember to breathe, ma’am.”

“Not what you thought I’d be doing, right?” Francis asked quietly.

“Are you happy?” Ellie freed one hand to rub her thumb along his cheek as he nodded. “I was proud of you when you were in the Navy. Now my son is a dragon captain? How could I not be proud of that?”

Cal rose to his feet. Goodness, was the ground a long way off.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You can say no,” Francis added hurriedly.

“Darling,” she said with a breathless laugh, “this is more fun than I’ve had in _years_.”

He gave her the same snag-toothed lopsided smile he’d had when he’d left her and the little shop in London over a decade ago. No matter what happened, he was always going to be the small boy whose curiosity got the better of him and who had always been so, so brave.

“Remember to breathe, Mum,” he said, and leaned forward to pat the side of Cal’s neck.

She clung tightly to the leather harness in front of her as the ground fell away completely and suddenly, and the whole of London opened up in front of her, the Thames sliding through it like a twisting, glittering snake. The wind rushed past her ears, and though she couldn’t hear it -- and she doubted James and Francis could, either -- she laughed like she hadn’t since she was a girl.

Ellie let go of the harness and grabbed her boys’ hands, squeezing tightly as the pocket watch continued to glint brightly in the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll gladly take [a coffee if you're offering.](https://ko-fi.com/A575V2H)
> 
> And, as usual, I'm over in [this corner of the internet. Come say hi.](http://thewanderingsagittarius.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it and you're feeling generous, [you can always buy me a coffee.](https://ko-fi.com/A575V2H)
> 
> Also, I'm over [here](http://thewanderingsagittarius.tumblr.com).


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